The Death Of Me
by Princess Andromeda II
Summary: Percy Jackson has been through hell and back, literally. But what will happen when, through a simple mistake, the world loses the famous hero Percy Jackson, one of the most important and powerful demigods of all time, forever?
1. I Get Killed By Clifford the Big Red Dog

**Hi everyone! So, it's me again. As you can probably tell, I can't stay away from writing for very long. This is an idea I came up with one night, just staring at the ceiling while trying to go to sleep...Anyway it's a new series of mine (the chapters may be shorter than in "Everyone Loves Percy", if you read that, but I also plan on there being a lot more) and I really hope you like it! Enjoy!**

Dying sucks.

Like, it really, really sucks. One minute you're alive, enjoying the simple things in life like being able to smell your own armpits and give your buddy a high-five, and the next: you're a lonely shadow of a person, marooned in a world of their own.

Although you might not be able to tell, I'm not always this pessimistic. I actually usually consider myself to be a bit of an optimist, always fighting for the greater good and praying to the gods above (there are lots to choose from, believe me) that I won't screw up whatever situation I'm going into too badly.

Hi. My name is Percy Jackson. Here's a few facts about me: I'm a demigod: half mortal, half god (yeah; you heard right). I'm about to turn 18 years old. At least, I was... Another fun fact about me?

I'm dead.

It's a bit tragic, isn't it? The brave, young hero (I don't mean to toot my own horn, but *toot toot*) dying nobly for a good cause, but at such a youthful age. He leaves behind his devoted lover, and the effects are _bad._ A bunch of people die as a result too of him not being there to protect him.

But maybe I'm starting too soon? Yeah, I'm definitely getting ahead of myself. After all, before I tell you what happens when I'm dead, I'd better tell you _how_ I died.

It was my 18th birthday party.

The opening line, and already it's depressing. But yes, sadly, I died on the day of my 18th birthday. Both were a surprise: the party and the dying.

My family and friends from camp had apparently spent quite a while working on it, because there was a _hell_ of a lot of decorations and detailed crap like that: green paper mache had been wrapped and wrinkled into the appropriate mold to look like seaweed as it hung down from the ceiling; a giant jellyfish facade had replaced the chandelier that swung steadily in the dining room; nectar was served for the partially-divine guests in champagne flutes that looked like delicate conch shells, wine for the mortals in easily distinguishable coral reef cups; and the band that had been hired sang cheesy, ocean-themed songs like "Under the Sea" from _The Little Mermaid_ and "Beyond the Sea" by Bobby Darin. (My personal favorite that I heard was the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine," although I would have much preferred it if it had been called " _Blue_ Submarine").

The theme was apparently the right way to go, as it seemed to be a smash-hit. Everyone that had been invited (Sally, Paul Blofis, Tyson, Annabeth, Thalia, Jason, Piper, Leo, Frank, Hazel, Nico, Calypso, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, a couple of minor gods, and a random drunk and wandering centaur or two were just a few of the guests on the lists). The guests all behaved well and seemed to enjoy themselves, although it probably would have gone a little smoother if those few Party Ponies hadn't decided it would be a good idea to try to get Thalia to kiss them. I don't even know what those guys were thinking. All in all, I'd say my birthday party was a success.

Right up until the point when the big, fire-breathing hellhound showed up.

See, I'd been talking to my girlfriend, kind of doing that awkward but slightly cute half standing-there-talking/ half dancing thing, when all of a sudden, I heard a clattering at the front of the apartment. My mom and Paul, being the old people that they are (no offense, Mom, if you're reading this), had decided to hit the sack a little earlier than the rest of us: like a few hours earlier. So when I felt a ripple of disturbance flow through the throng of party guests, me being the responsible host that I am, I scurried to see what all the commotion was about.

Everyone was gathered around one of the apartment windows that overlooked the courtyard in the center. I made my way to the front and leaned out the window. There was that energetic but slightly unnerving buzz about the atmosphere, kind of like the type that you hear when you know something exciting has happened but you can't tell what. Well, in this case, I could tell exactly what the _thing_ was.

It was a hellhound standing there in the badly overgrown garden, surrounded by a few bird baths and messy flower beds, like an angelic child from the 1800's. The monster was huge, about the size of a bulldozer. It's fur, although it looked slightly metallic, was quite an unusual color: bright red, the color of a fire truck, or a fire hydrant, or maybe even a bottle of ketchup, depending on which analogy you like the best. And even from up here, I could see that it's eyes were a terrifying black color, ones that seemed so devoid of emotion, so lifeless, so souless, that I felt as if by even staring into them I was spiraling into an eternal pit of darkness.

The feeling was odd yet familiar, and I didn't like it. I decided I was gonna go down there and teach this overgrown hellhound a lesson. _Nobody_ comes to my 18th birthday party and ruins it...at least before we've had cake. (It _is_ blue, after all.)

I ducked under the window to climb onto the fire escape that zigzagged all the way to the ground, trying to build some confidence in me, when a hand gripped my shirt with surprising force. I turned, a little flabbergasted, to see the light of my life, (a.k.a. my girlfriend) staring at me with big worried doe-eyes.

"Percy," she said, her eyebrows furrowed over her intellignet grey eyes in concern. "Please don't go. Not now."

"But it's ruining the party!" I half-complained, half-explained. "And everyone's having such a good time, too! I want to make sure nobody gets hurt, is all."

"I know, but..." she paused, taking a deep breath, and there was a faint breeze that softly blew her golden princess curls away from her face. "I don't know about this. It just feels-" she stopped, searching in that vast thesaurus brain of hers for the right word, and settled for "wrong."

I should have listened to her right then and there. Not only is she my girlfriend, whom I trust more than myself at times, but she's also Annabeth, the renowned daughter of the friggin goddess of _wisdom_ , Athena. I don't call her "Wise Girl" for nothing.

But instead of taking her advice like I should have, I took her hand gently in mine and said, a little more quietly, "It's okay. I promise. I'll be right back. Besides," I said as I kissed her hand and walked away, climbing nimbly down the fire escape, "it's just a hellhound. What's the worst that could happen?"

Famous last words.

The worst thing that could happen? Oh, I don't know genius, maybe you could tempt fate, karma, and whatever that jinx force is called so that you end up with the worst case scenario, which is death. Which you did.

I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I approached. Eep? Yikes? Jinkies? Whatever it was, fit certainly didn't last long in my brain. The rest of my somewhat limited brain space was inhabited by the effort and concentration I needed to stay alive, which, in case you've been paying attention to the story so far, didn't exactly work out as planned either.

The whole time I was trying to kill the beast, unless I was looking at its face, I just kept thinking about Clifford, "the big red dog" from that PBS Kids show I'd seen when I was younger. Thinking about such a friendly, fun-loving character that I'd grown up with made it awfully hard to concentrate on killing this thing.

Still, I tried.

I stabbed, parried, thrust, ducked, faked, rolled, tucked: I did _everything._ Yet somehow this monster was unbeatable. It's unnatural red metallic fur was impenetrable, and it was _so_ distracting too. It was like it knew all of my movements before I did, yet I still couldn't manage to pinpoint down any of its moves, as though it had studied my style from afar while keeping its own distinct fighting stance.

No matter what the case, it wasn't long before I was pinned down on the ground, two paws clamped down on either of my hands. My sword lay unreachable at my side, knocked out of my hand at some moment by the hideous hellhound. A long, thick string of drool dripped slowly onto my face, the saliva leaking out of the upturned corner of the monster's mouth like a-

WAIT is he _smiling?,_ I thought. _Since when do hellhounds smile?_

Unfortunately, that train of thought didn't get the chance to further develop, as the source of all of my brainstorming, analyzing, and thinking in general was suddenly and violently uprooted by a single snap.

The hellhound bit my head clean off.

 **So, what did you think? Please let me know in the review section below! It's so so easy to review; it takes like two seconds, and it makes my day** ** _SO much better!_ Also, if you liked this, please check out my first story I published: "Everyone Loves Percy." ****Thanks for reading.**

 **Have a great day.**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	2. I Have The Best Girlfriend EVER

**Hi everyone! Thank you for coming back for the second installment of this new series of mine. This chapter is just a teensy bit longer than the first one, but no huge difference in size. Thank you to everyone who has followed, favorited, and reviewed. You honestly have NO idea how much your support means to me. (Also, just a quick FYI, if you've read my first story called "Everyone Loves Percy," then you're probably familiar with how I individually recognized every person who reviewed. I probably won't be doing that for this story. I'm sorry, but it was hard work, and took up a lot of time. Thank you!) Last thing: if you are a constant follower of mine (you know who you are :D) then please do not get too freaked out if I start writing/publishing stories for other fandoms pretty soon. I read a lot, so there are other fandoms I love, and that I've got plenty of fanfic ideas for. Okay, I'll shut up now, and I promise the ANs in the future will be much shorter! Thank you for reading this far anyway. Enjoy!**

Somehow, I recall being able to hear Annabeth's horrified scream as the creature chomped down and took off my head.

 _She must have been watching me this whole time,_ I somehow managed to still think during all of this. _But of course she was. She'd told me not to go. She'd said something about this wasn't right. But I ignored her. I can't believe I actually ignored her. Note to self,_ I thought, _never ever ever doubt Annabeth again. Next time I'll-_

Then that train of thought was cut, but by me this time, not the hellhound. How was I still thinking? I was definitely dead now. That was clearly my head being masticated (another Annabeth vocabulary term; not the gross word it sounds like: yeah, you know the one I mean) in the hellhound's mouth. There was no mistaking that jet black mop of hair that I'd seen nearly every day of my life.

But that didn't explain what was going on here. I was dead. But at the same time, I wasn't. I looked down at myself. Yep, my body was still there, just as intact as ever. My hands were still mine, my clothes were still on me, this was _my body._

But how could it be? My body couldn't be here. My body, my poor mangled body, was lying right over there on the sidewalk. And there was a girl running towards it. A blond girl, her entire face contorted into one of terror. Her curly hair flew behind her as she raced down the sidewalk, her grey eyes holding more fear than I'd ever known.

My Annabeth.

She lept over a fallen trash can lying at the end of the driveway, and swooped down on the immobile hellhound, who hadn't moved one limb since decapitating me. Instead, it just stood there, a blank expression on its face. It seemed to be listening to or for someone/something, because it's bulbous head was cocked slightly to the right, and its eyes were unfocused on the scene before him, even when a furious blonde seemingly swooped down out of the sky, a deadly dagger in her hand, and began to hack at the creature with all her might.

My eyes- that is, my eyes on my ghostly form, not my decapitated form- widened in surprise. I'd seen Annabeth go ninja before. Heck, she'd taken down some _scary_ monsters over the years, and there was no doubt in my mind that she was brave. And she could even be a bit of a badass sometimes, if she really wanted to.

But typically, demigods, even insanely courageous ones like her- didn't charge straight at a monster with their weapon raised, hollering at their top of their lungs and screaming bloody murder.

But maybe Annabeth was an exception, because there she was: screaming and shouting and yelling and slicing and cutting and hacking and just not caring what else was going on.

The oddest thing about the whole thing though (besides the obvious fact that I was dead, but at the same time not dead) was that the hellhound didn't do _anything._ It didn't retaliate against Annabeth's attacks. It didn't pounce on her, like it had on me, and start ripping her apart. It just stood there, that same intent gaze, set on something far away that our human eyes couldn't process.

Whatever it was seeing or listening to, it must have been important, because no matter how much my kick-butt ninja girlfriend went nuclear on it, it just stood there with the same slightly stupefied look on its face.

And it. Didn't. Budge. One. Inch.

Suddenly, almost as if it had been shocked by electricity with a metal rod, the oddly bright red hellhound leaped into the air It soared over Annabeth and I's heads, jumping impossibly high, possibly eight or ten feet into the air. It seemed to stay suspended in the air for a moment before giving one final growl. The sound hurt my ears, making them vibrate. It began to shimmer slightly, the effect growing more and more noticeable until the entire hellhound seemed to be so sparkly that it looked like one of the vampires out of the Twilight movies.

And- although I can't be sure about this part, since a lot was obviously happening at that moment and I think my brain was a little fried- I'm pretty sure that the hellhound turned its head slightly to the side, so that it made eye contact with me and his black-hole eyes met my sea green ones, and then (again, this will sound crazy)...it smiled, and _winked_ at me.

And then it disappeared.

I know, I know. Take me to the insane asylum as soon as you can. I'll even offer to drive.

But really, it freaked me out. I mean, this giant monster- a _hellhound_ , of all things- gives me this creepy grin, winks at me, and then suddenly is gone. It sounds like some lame stalker guy trying to pick up a hot girl at a party: grin, wink, disappear, repeat.

I stared, gaping up at the space in the air, several feet above my head, where only a moment ago there had been a huge hellhound the color of a tomato, and now...there was nothing.

I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised at this. Really, when compared to the rest of my crazy, insane, and now very short, life, a hellhound the color of a cheap party balloon that could also do disappearing magic tricks wasn't the biggest thing that had ever happened. Still, I was for some reason very shaken up about this. Maybe dying makes you really emotional and impressionable. Or something.

I turned my attention away from...that... and switched it to my girlfriend, who is slightly psycho (but awesome, as I've been trained by her to say).

Annabeth, who had been busy hacking away at the creature's left leg, had been so immersed in her spiteful task that she'd actually stumbled back when the monster had sprung up, and she'd fallen flat on her butt, landing with a quiet "oomph" that I somehow found impossibly cute. _This is not the time or place, Percy_ , I had to remind myself.

I guess she had stayed down there on the ground. Maybe it was comfortable down there. But more likely she just didn't want to get up, and I didn't blame her. Who wants to move at all after kicking a butt that big? Still, I thought that it might somehow help her to have another person near her. I walked over to her tentatively for some reason, because it's not like she could see me, and sat down.

I registered no recognition in her eyes. Only lifelessness. Fatigue. Ultimate exhaustion. Her usually sparkling grey eyes were dull and drab. The spark that was usually there had suddenly gone out, whiffed out by the cruel hand of death. I expected her to be crying, but nothing, not a single tear, lined the edges of her eyes.

She had not moved her eyes from my lifeless, mangled body.

I could see the other people upstairs finally getting over their initial shock of the extended scene they'd scene unfold below them, and one by one, they climbed out the apartment window, onto the balcony, and clambering down the fire escape. No one even bothered using the stairs in the apartment building.

As the people reached the ground, I saw everyone I knew: my girlfriend, my friends and my family, almost everyone that really matters to me in the world. And all of a sudden, I had the weirdest sense of embarrassment. For some _really_ strange reason, I was absolutely mortified that they had seen me die. I have no idea why. That's probably a pretty stupid thing to think, right? Like, I'm dead. Who the heck cares? But then again, _I_ certainly wasn't dead.

There was definitely no doubt in my mind though that I had died a mortifying death: I ran right up to this huge monster, screaming at it and taunting it, and then it just swaggered over and chomped off my head. Nobody would look back on me and think "Oh, it's such a shame that he died. He was so young, and there was so much potential and possibility in him. But at least he died nobly, like a hero should." Instead, they'll be thinking "Right, that's the kid who was stupid enough to charge a freakishly large hellhound and expect to win. What was his name again?"

And still, something about death seemed like it was meant to be...private. Maybe not all the time leading up to it, like saying your goodbyes and stuff, but just the actual part where you pass away, and your spirit detaches from your body.

At least, that's what I used to think that's what's supposed to happen. Now I have no idea what to think.

I saw my mom, Sally Jackson (or Blofis, now that she's married; whatever you want to call her) running towards me, Annabeth, and three-fourths of the other me: the dead me. She finally reached our sad little company, and she fell to her knees in disbelief. She seemed to be mouthing something, over and over again; the words looked like "no no no no", but then again I could have been wrong, because no sound was coming out. Tears were streaming down her face, wet and sticky, it looked like, but like her words of despair, the tears were silent too.

I almost broke.

My mom, my _mom_ , the one person who probably loved me most in the entire world, even more than Annabeth, was too hurt, too pained, too _broken_ to form words over my death. She couldn't even find the strength to cry real tears. She was _that_ broken.

It hurt. It hurt really, really bad.

But the fun didn't stop there. Oh no, it just got better. My mom's silent sobs seemed to have a contagious effect, because the throng of people crowded around my mom, Annabeth, me, and Dead Me began to openly allow tears to fall. Then there were stifled sobs. Then whimpers of sadness. And finally, the restraints fell, and everyone was sobbing and moaning and screaming about how it wasn't fair and nearly making their throats raw. Everyone cried. Everyone except my mom, who was still silently forming the word "no" over and over again, and Annabeth, who sat still as a statue, set there to guard my dead body.

She still hadn't moved her eyes from my dead body.

That was the final straw. I couldn't deal with this anymore right now. Even though I knew none of the people could see me, I needed to go off and be alone. Mourn my own death. Plus, I knew staying here with this broken people wouldn't do me any good. I looked back at all of my friends, my family, my mom, and my girlfriend.

It physically pained me to see her this way. So sad and weak. This wasn't her. This wasn't the real Annabeth. I didn't know who this new, even if only temporary, Annabeth was, but I didn't want her. I didn't want to see her like this. So I wouldn't. I turned away from the scene.

And I ran in the opposite direction.

 **So...how'd you like it? How about you tell me in a review? That would be fantastic. Or through a follow or favorite. All are very very easy and are extremely awesome for me. Thanks for reading! Enjoy life to the fullest, my friend.**

 **Have a great day!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	3. I Try Stalking (For The First Time)

**Hello, lovely people! I hope you had a lovely week, and that you enjoyed the last chapter. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, followed, and favorited. Every sign of support you show me truly does make a** ** _huge_** **difference. Anyway, here's Chapter 3, and I hope you enjoy it!**

You may already know this, but running away rarely solves many problems. It might help you get away for a while, delay the inevitable, but it's not very often that it actually _solves_ a problem. (Unless, of course, you're running in a track competition or some kind of race. Then, obviously, it does.)

So I guess it was kind of obvious that after I ran away from my friends and family, where my _house_ was, I would have to return. After all, I need a place to call home, even in my half-alive, half-dead form. Do you honestly expect me to be a homeless ghost? That's just pathetic, so no thank you.

After running to the corner where a certain grocery store was, I slowed to a stop and reluctantly trudged back to the apartment building. I can be _really_ slow when I want to be (or even without trying, so I'm told), so it's no surprise that it took me about a half hour to breach a distance that had taken me only five to ten minutes to run.

When I was approaching the faded facade of the old brick building, I had the strangest emotion pent up inside of me. It made my gut churn, and my stomach feel kinda queasy. I'm pretty sure the feeling was guilt. Inexplicable guilt. I think, somewhere in this messed-up head of mine, I felt guilty for being late getting home. Like it was just a normal weekday of me coming home after school, and my mom would scold me for taking longer than I should have, but then she would just bake me a plate of chocolate chip cookies and we would all be good again.

But in this case, there was none of that. There was no strict yet loving admonishing awaiting my arrival. There was no pair of open arms to rub my back and hug me. There was no batch of cookies to welcome me home. Most importantly, there was no cheerful, strong mom to kiss me on the forehead and ask me how my day was.

Instead, what I found when I got home, was a ruined state. All of the guests from the party were gone. The apartment had been cleared of all party decorations, presents, and desserts. There was not a single blue crumb as evidence of the cookies that had been set out for me only an hour or so ago.

My mother sat on the edge of a wooden chair in the middle of our small, yet usually sunny, kitchen, with my stepfather standing behind her, rubbing her back and smoothing out her curly dark hair gently. My mom was crying. _Actually_ crying this time. And the sound was so sad, so pitiful and pathetic, that my heart physically clinched at the audible noise made by so much despair. Standing there, watching my mom cry like that, with her broken sobs echoing in the abandoned kitchen, I once again felt like I was invading someone's privacy during a very personal moment.

Paul stood behind her, always supporting her like the good husband and father figure that he was...I mean is. He was crying too. But his tears were silent, like mom's had been half an hour ago when I'd left her. He let no sob escape from him, but he was clearly holding back tears that my mom wouldn't have been able to see from in front of him anyway. The way he rubbed her back and ran his fingers through her hair, smoothing out whatever bumps or tangles he found, it was like he was proving to himself and to her that he was alright. But I knew that right now, neither of them were.

"WHY?!" screamed my mom, so loudly and so suddenly that I stumbled against the counter I'd been leaning on and nearly fell down from surprise. "Why? Why did it have to be Percy? Not Percy... anyone but him! He was so young! So brave. He was only beginning his life! Why should it be snatched away from him like this?" My mom paused for a moment, trying to inhale and exhale a deep breath that came out shaky. She started up again, but still choked on her words. "He had his entire life ahead of him. He was going to go to college with Annabeth. They could have gotten engaged, then married. Moved to New Rome. Had kids and raised a family. Settled down, gotten normal jobs, then retired. Grown old together. Die a peaceful, normal death that doesn't involve the normal demigod stuff. Like..." She swallowed. "Like _this._ "

She stopped talking, and began to cry again, her mumbled words nearly incomprehensible, except for a few phrases that may have been "Percy" and "no". Paul continued to stand behind her, still silent and still as a statue frozen by Medusa. But the tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, which he now let fall freely, were the obvious signs that he was not one of the statues that belonged in Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium. (And trust me, I'm a _very_ good judge of this. Take it from me, personally.)

Despite the broken forms of my parents, I knew that he had to leave them alone for now. This still felt like an invasion of their privacy, and I didn't want to betray their trust, even while I was dead. Besides, I had seen enough of this sad site for now, and there was another person that I definitely wanted to check on.

So without a further sound (not that either of my parents would have been able to hear me), I managed to slip from the room without additionally tripping over my own two feet or anything else in the room. Trust me, this was a big accomplishment.

I walked through the still-open apartment door slowly, so slow that a snail would have beat me in a race with no trouble at all. Then, suddenly empowered by some strange feeling, I broke into a sprint, and ran down the hallway. I streaked down the slightly dirty and grimey staircase, whipping around the corner while holding onto the rail.

And almost ran into my girlfriend.

Well, ex-girlfriend, if you wanted to count the whole death factor. But no matter what our current status was, something wasn't right.

Annabeth, the girl who was always so bright and alert, looked like all the life had been sucked out of her. Her eyes, usually shimmering with intelligence, had lost their gleam. She seemed to slouch when she walked, and her steps were a weak shuffle on the nasty carpet that covered the stairs. In fact, her pace was so slow that she probably could've lost in a race against me when I'd been walking the same way, just a few moments ago.

"Annabeth," I said in surprise. My voice came out raspy and weird, and I suddenly realized that this was the first time I had spoken since right before I'd charged the hellhound. Gods, that felt like _days,_ maybe even _weeks_ ago, although when I thought about it, it had only been an hour and a half ago, two hours tops.

I cleared my throat and repeated, this time with more force. "Annabeth."

There was no reaction from her. No recognition in her dull, lifeless eyes. But it's not like I expected there to be, after all. I was dead. That pretty much sealed the whole deal right there, and seemingly cut the cord that tied me to the living world.

Still, there had been some small part of me hoping that maybe, just maybe, she would've looked up at me when I called her name. She would have stared at me for a moment, no change in the lifelessness in her eyes, but then those brilliant grey orbs would have lit up with recognition, like someone had turned on a switch. Then she probably woud have thrown herself at me, and we would hug and kiss each other, and we would just stand there, saying each other's names over and over again. Just staying there forever. Wrapped in our own little world.

Our own little forever.

And we would have lived happily ever after.

But of course that's not what happened at all. I kept standing there, invisible and broken because I didn't exist anymore. Annabeth kept shuffling forward, broken. My mom kept crying upstairs, broken. Paul kept rubbing my broken mother's back upstairs, and he was broken too. Somewhere, my other friends that had witnessed my death were probably crying too, broken, and telling everyone that they knew. Everything that had happened that afternoon.

Telling them what an idiot I'd been to charge that hellhound.

Telling them the dopey expression that had been on my face when it had killed me.

Telling them how they had all stayed there, frozen, for an hour, crying over my dead body.

Telling them that I was gone. I was dead.

"I am dead," I whispered out loud. Nobody heard, because nobody knew I was there, and if even they had, there was nobody around. Annabeth had already shuffled out the front door, leaving me in her tracks. It didn't matter though. What would be the point of following her? She was gone, and so was I. I was dead.

"I am dead," I repeated, slightly louder than before. The words sounded so strange to my own ears. I, Percy Jackson, was actually dead. It always seemed like something that would happen to _other_ people, like all of the brave souls I knew had died during the two wars I'd been through. But I wasn't one of those people, I always reassured myself. I would live on past them, carry their legacy for them, and fix the world so that demigods would never have to live in a world like that again, where we were constantly worrying about staying alive from the very day we were born. That had been my mission after I'd won the second war, and I'd committed myself to it day after day.

But I had failed. Because I had died.

"I am dead," I said to myself again, my voice rising to the next level.

I had failed.

"I am _dead._ " Louder.

I was a failure.

"I am DEAD!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, my voice raw. I was suddenly overcome with a scary fit of anger. My rage and despair reached an all-time high for the past year, and a blurry coat of red tinted my vision. I guess it would've been a bit like watching one of those old cartoons, where the person gets mad, and he starts to turn red, like a thermometer, and smoke blows out of his ears. I think it would've looked like that, but maybe even scarier. I'm sure what I did next though probably looked even scarier than _that._

I punched the wall. _Hard._

I regretted it instantly, even as I was doing it. I winced, expecting to feel a shock of blinding pain in my left fist.

But the scary part? It didn't hurt. Not one bit. Because my hand didn't touch the wall at all. I stared down at my hand in surprise, and almost fell over from overwhelming shock.

My hand was stuck _in_ the wall.

It had passed through the surface entirely.

 **WHAT?! Craziness! I hope you liked the chapter. If you didn't, please hang in there just a little bit longer. I've tried to get all the super sad stuff out of the way, and the next few chapters should have more action. Please leave a review, telling me what you liked, what you didn't like, what you want to see more of, any suggestions or comments are completely welcome. I'm hoping for 5 reviews for this next chapter. That would be so great! The more reviews, the sooner I'll update! Please review! Thanks for reading.**

 **Have a great week!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	4. I Learn What A Cheese Grater Really Is

**Hey everyone! I hope you're having a good day, week, month, and year so far. :) Here's a new chapter for your kind faces. I hope you enjoy it!**

I stared at my hand in complete shock.

My hand was in the wall.

My _hand._ Was. In. The. _Wall._

 _This just isn't possible_ , I told myself. _Hands do not get stuck in walls. They don't pass through a solid surface._

My shock turned to confusion, which quickly took a fast turn-around and morphed into horror. I stepped away from the wall, trying to pull my hand away, but it didn't budge. It stayed in the wall. I yanked on my arm with my other hand, desperately tugging at it. I planted my feet against the floor and leaned all the way back, and when that didn't work, I put my feet on the wall on either side of my trapped limb. When _that_ didn't work, I turned around and tried to run away, but that just felt like my arm was getting ripped out of my socket, so I dropped that stupid idea.

I finally ran out of ways to try to free my hand (a.k.a. just hurting myself in the process). I plopped down dejectedly on the dirty carpet, trying to not get more depressed than I already was.

 _On the bright side,_ I thought to myself, _I just punched a wall without getting hurt._ I had wanted to punch a wall out of anger my entire life, because I thought that it looked really cool and tough when other guys did it, but I had honestly just let my emotions overcome me, and I wasn't happy about it, now that it had happened. _On the down side,_ I thought bitterly, _I'm dead. And my hand is stuck in the wall._

I sighed, a melancholy sound, and tapped my fingers against my leg absent-mindedly. It was one of those moments where you just sit there and think, _Well, that happened. What am I supposed to do now?_

The answer came in the form of a loud noise, coming from down the hall and around the corner, presumably somewhere near the front door of the apartment building. There was a tremendous pounding on the door, and then an enormous din followed, something like the sound of a door being busted down. I could hear the sound of the wood bursting into splinters: instant-wood-chips.

Voices entered the building, and they carried strongly through the corridor down to where I was. I didn't recognize any of them. They were loud, boisterous voices; most of them were male, although I think I heard a female or two in there. In all, it easily sounded like there could be twenty people; although, there could have been a bit of a game-changer in the fact that the people were being so dam loud. Again, I didn't recognize any of the voices.

I wasn't a fool. I still don't think I am, if I'm being perfectly honest (although I think my sweet, supportive girlfriend Annabeth would beg to differ). So it didn't take long to put two and two together. A door being kicked down? Lots of people? Loud voices? A single thought rose to the forefront of my mind.

 _Burglars._

As the voices died down, one voice remained constant and dimmed. I heard a gentle click come from that area, and it was a frightening sound as the the noise resonated throughout the empty corridor.

 _And they have guns,_ I thought.

What else could it be? They had kicked down the front door, because obviously they didn't' have the key. They had brought along a lot of people, because there was safety in numbers, and more people to do the job with. And they had brought the guns, because...well, it was either to be on the defensive team if cops or some not-so-friendly apartment tenants showed up, or to be on the offensive team if they felt like getting their hands dirty today.

The voices were getting closer.

I suddenly became very afraid. How was I supposed to get out of here? My hand was stuck in the wall! I had already done everything I could to try to pull it free, to no avail. What would happen when those goons came by here?

Immediately another thought popped into my slow brain, and I instantly felt a guilty weight on my shoulders when I realized I hadn't considered it before. _What would happen to the rest of the people in the building? What would happen to the fat old man on the second floor who always wears only his bathrobe to get the newspaper in the morning? What would happen to the six-year-old twin girls who live on the top floor and love to jump rope and play hopscotch? What would happen to the snotty lady who carries around her ugly rat dog in her purse?_ I stopped, struck with horror at another thought.

 _What would happen to my mom and Paul?_

Suddenly the voices that had been bobbing down the deserted hallways up until that point took on a face and shape as the burglars came from around the corner. There were probably around ten of them, which was about twice as much as I had been expecting there to be. It looked like I had slightly misjudged the gender ratio as well: counting them off silently in my head, I found there to be three girls and six guys.

All of the girls were wearing very revealing clothes that showed off a lot of cleavage, belly, and that persistently clung to their skin; meanwhile, the guys wore loose-fitting clothes that were so baggy and low, it was like the way they hung off their frames was trying to entirely cover up any body shape that they had.

Each person held a lethal-looking object in his or her hand, ranging from a simple pistol or knife to a club (like one of those that policemen used to swing around) or a bat, but there were some pretty strange weapons-of-choice in there that I normally wouldn't choose, and they only got weirder as it went along. I spotted a walking stick, a pillowcase, a frypan, a soccer trophy, and...was that a cheese grater?!

Even I had to admit: using a cheese grater as a weapon? That took some serious skill.

"Stop," said one of the men in the group. They had just reached the end of the short corner hallway that branched off from the main entry hallway, and had come to a sudden standstill at the frame of the door that led into this main stairwell. They were all clustered together in a group, listening to the man who had just commanded them to halt. The guy wore a dark ski mask (which I thought was kind of cliche for a break-in, but whatever) that helped hide his face while also keeping pinned down the enormous bushel of beard protruding from his jaw.

The throng of burglars was rooted no more than two feet from my legs, which sat, plopped in the middle of the route to the stairs. If they had just slightly turned their heads under normal circumstances, they would have spotted me. But obviously, with me being dead, the circumstances weren't normal. Still, I couldn't help but close my eyes and silent pray to the god or goddess of invisibility or whatever that I wouldn't be seen. _Please don't see me, please don't see me, please don't see me...,_ all the while thinking _This is so stupid. Why am I so scared? I'm a ghost after all. I'm a ghost. They can't see me._

"Looney, Ant, and Jeb, you guys look around on the first floor," said the same guy as before, his bushy beard bouncing up and down slightly as he spoke. "See what you can find. Anything valuable, take it. You see anyone, you tell 'em you're the cable guy. They start to ask questions, you shoot 'em. Got it?"

Three of the guys who I presumed were Looney, Ant, and Jeb (what kind of names are those, by the way? Pfft. Street names.) nodded quickly and set off to the left, away from the staircase, to go loot the place; meanwhile, Beardy Head and the remaining two guys and three girls moved to go up the staircase past me.

I closed my eyes and prayed even harder: _Please don't see me, please don't see me, please don't see me..._

They were right in front of me now.

 _I'm a ghost, I'm a ghost, I'm a ghost..._

They didn't even bat an eye.

I breathed an enormous sigh of relief and let my hands flop absentmindedly into my lap as I watched the six baddies climb the stairs, one by one. I had been so nervous about them seeing me (trust me, I don't even KNOW why) that I had gotten a nervous pit in my stomach, and it groaned in protest. Was I hungry? _If I'm a ghost, can I even eat?_ I wondered out of curiosity. _Maybe there's some extra food in the fridge upstairs that I can- HOLD UP!_

It was like a car had been driving in my mind, slowly at a leisurely pace down a winding road, but had just realized that it had run over some deer in the road, and it slammed on the brakes, stopping the momentum it had acquired at going 20 miles an hour. Just like that, the wheels and gears in my head backed up slowly to check on something that had just happened.

My _hands_ , as in the _plural form_ , had dropped into my lap. My hands. BOTH OF THEM! I was free! I stared at my hand for about the tenth time in absolute shock. The sneaky little bast***! How had it gotten out of the wall? Especially without me noticing?

 _You know what?_ I thought to myself as I stood up slowly, the way you do after you've been sitting in a position for a while and you need to stretch. _I don't even care. It doesn't matter._

I planted both of my feet on the ground in front of the steps and stared upwards onto the second floor and beyond. Up there somewhere, there were six people, who were not only willing to steal from innocent people, but also to shoot them out of pure convenience, and there were three more of the dirty rats down here on the first floor. The thought made me practically boil with anger, which is _really_ hard for a son of the sea god to do, believe me. I mean, I've practically got a built-in hydration system for this bad boy. Still, I could imagine the smoke pouring out of my ears and my face lighting up like a cherry as I thought about what would happen when those burglars reached the third and top floor where my mom and Paul both were. I knew them well enough to know that if they were this sad and broken over my death, then they wouldn't even put up a fight if a gun was forced against their heads. In fact, they might even welcome death.

And that's what worried me the most.

 _No,_ I thought to myself emphatically. _I won't let that happen._ I knew that I would protect every last person in this building, especially my parents, well...to the death.

I welcomed a challenge every now and then, after all. 9 to one? I could handle that. I cracked my knuckles loudly (although nobody would have heard) as I began to climb the stairs, muttering to myself.

"Let's get started."

 **Thank you for reading this chapter! I really hope you liked it. Please tell me in a review how I can improve, change anything, add anything, or just stay the same. Thanks to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed last chapter. Please make sure to review, follow, review, favorite, review, review, (did I mention review?), and REVIEW! Thanks.**

 **Have a great week!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	5. I Perfect The Art of Ninja-Rolling

**Hey munchkins. What's up? Hope you had a great week. Thanks for being patient with me when I didn't update like I was supposed to last week (oops!). I was on fall break, so I should've done it anyway, but I went to a wedding where I was a bridesmaid, so...yeah that's my only excuse. Sorry! This chapter is the longest so far though!**

 **Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and followed last chapter. Here's chapter 5 for ya! Enjoy!**

I raced up the stairs of the apartment building faster than I thought possible, considering how astoundingly quiet I was being. Usually, I'd be the type to take one step onto the stairs and then just fall down over some seemingly random object.

But I had my mind set on my goal: save my mom and Paul. And I am also one of those people who, went I put my mind to something, will accomplish that goal like it's nobody's business, whatever the cost may be.

Even if it's my own life.

Barely straining to hear past the slight creaking of the sound of my footfall on the creaky steps, I could detect Beardy Head's voice up above on the second floor, and I listened closely to understand what he was saying.

"Barley and Cobbs, you two come with me," he ordered. "We'll take the second floor." Two buff-looking dudes, one Asian and the other with cocoa-colored skin, nodded silently, the tattoos on their biceps slightly rippling. It was incredibly intimidating. I secretly laughed at their names though. I mean, Barley and Cobbs? Really? Who even comes up with these names? They sounded like two old cops from a 1950's TV show or something. The names "Cobbs" reminded me of corn on the cob. And wasn't Barley some sort of spice, or seasoning, or one of those fancy plants? For possibly the first time in my life, I thanked my mother for not naming me something worse than Perseus.

"Cat, Alicia, and Forrest, are you three girls okay with taking the top floor?"

There was a palpable shift in the tone the conversation held. Beardy Head's eyes had taken on a certain gleam, one that I was surprised to see, and his voice had a lilt in it that showed concern.

Now, I know I'm usually not the brightest when it comes to relationships, but maybe that just applies to my own life. I mean, it was fairly obvious- to me at least- that Beardy Head was genuinely concerned about these girls. Maybe even one girl in particular, as I saw the way his eyes seemed to flick back to one girl in particular- the girl with a black catsuit on, kind of like Black Widow or Catwoman-, over and over.

I couldn't help thinking that it was a little cute.

I know, I know. These guys were breaking into our apartment building. They were going to steal all of our stuff. They were going to hurt a lot of people, _including_ my mom and Paul. I'm messed up in my thinking- trust me, I've been told that _plenty_ of times before.

 _Focus, Percy,_ I told myself, and I followed my own advice, because I figure I owe at least that to myself. I guess.

" _God_. Yes, Retlaw, we'll be fine," she huffed as she flipped her long strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder and rolled her icy blue eyes. (I suspected that she was Cat, based on the _very_ revealing _cat_ suit she was wearing.) She was _extremely_ pretty, and believe me, I felt guilty thinking this way about another girl besides Annabeth when she wasn't around, but the tight outfit the girl was wearing really wasn't helping matters much. She was definitely out of the guy's league though, and I almost felt bad for Beardy H- I mean, _Retlaw_ \- until I remembered that these people were trying to break in, steal, and hurt people in my building. And also when I remembered his name was Retlaw.

Burglars need better names.

But at least now I thought I remembered all their names: Looney, Ant, Jeb, Barley, Cobbs, Cat, Alicia, Forrest, and Retlaw. Great, I actually got something right for once! And knowing all their names would definitely make it easier to identify them if they tried to get away when I turned them into the police... Oh.

Wait a second.

I'm dead. Heh. I have to keep reminding myself of that, for some reason. I guess I just don't _feel_ very dead: my body still looks intact- exactly how it looked when I died. I take that back: before I was mauled to death by a hellhound the size and color of a fire truck.

 _Ugh._ I shuddered. The image of seeing myself getting torn apart like I had still burned itself in my mind, and the memory of all the blood left a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth. I checked my mouth, and it turns out I had bitten my tongue from the deep scowl my face had been set in.

I checked my reflection in one of the door's glass windows, and as I expected, I saw my own stone-like expression. I did _not_ expect to see myself looking nice and clean in my favorite pair of clothes that I'd worn for my birthday celebration: my orange Camp Half-Blood shirt and a pair of jeans with some Nikes, my clay bead hanging from around my neck like it always did. My expression, however, was not as nice as my clothing; instead, it held the determination and conviction that I felt on the inside. Quiet resolve. A fire burned in my eyes that I didn't think was possible to exist in me, since I was a son of Poseidon, the god of the sea himself.

 _Odd,_ I thought as I studied myself. _I'm dead, and I'm kind of a ghost. A weird kind, anyway. But still, shouldn't ghosts be invisible?_

As soon as I thought that, my reflection, as faint as it already was in the dim, grungy surface of the glass, seemed to rapidly fade away. It took only a matter of seconds, probably even less than one, but in the blink of an eye, the image that I had seen only moments ago of myself vanished into nothing.

I stuttered in confusion. "Wh-a-a-a?..." What was going on here? One second I'm a ghost, then next I'm some kind of freaking vampire cuz my reflection doesn't show up? I couldn't make sense of anything today.

I shook my head, trying to clear out the jumbled thoughts that were colliding on the walls of my brain. Whatever was happening, I wouldn't find out by just standing here, doing nothing but staring at a dirty plane of glass. Besides, the people I was _supposed_ to be following had already started climbing the final flight of stairs.

I jerked my head up at the sound of footsteps overhead. I could hear the sound of the trio of burglar girls' high-heel boots clicking on the steps above my head, the contact between their heels and the wood making a gentle tapping sound that, when put altogether, sounded a bit like raindrops falling on a roof. This was obviously a noise that appealed to the son of the sea god.

The sound of the rain has always calmed me, and it still helped me at that moment, steadying my jittery nerves and cooling the fire that coursed through my veins until I felt composed and collected. I ran up the stairs after...what were their names again? _Cat, Alicia, and Forrest,_ I recalled, my brain clear and my heart determined.

As I reached the top landing of the last set of stairs, I passed a window to my right. I did a bit of a doublt-take, since I was so surprised to see that it was night outside: there were no stars out, not this far into Manhattan, but I could see the cone-shaped beam of car headlights on the roads and the steady twinkle of streetlights. I wondered why it had taken me so long to notice how late it was. Maybe time passed slower when you were dead? Or maybe I had just been really distracted all evening. Either way, I realized with a start that I'd been dead for almost half a day, depending on what time of night it was. I looked around for a clock but didn't see one.

I felt totally immersed in my self-given mission as I darted behind the girls. We had reached the third floor (too soon, for my taste), and as the girls gathered in the center of the hallway, I tried to stealthily roll behind them (ninja-style) and perched in a doorframe outside Mrs. O'Shaughnessy's apartment. (What? A little ninja-rolling never hurt anybody. Except myself. Besides, every guy wants to be a ninja when he's younger. And even though I was dead now, I was _livin' the dream!_ )

"Okay, girls," said the girl in the catsuit, who I still presumed to be Cat, for obvious reasons. "Any preferences on who gets to sack each room?" Neither of the two other girls said a word, although one of them shook her head fervently, so Cat, who seemed to be the leader (at least of the female trio), started to point and rattle off apartment numbers to the other two, who stood captivated as they listened.

Stupid as I was, I decided to take the moment to stop listening and study the other two girls. (Hey, I know it was stupid, but don't blame me; blame it on the ADHD. I'd been creeping around for so long, trying to stay hyped up on adrenaline while also being surreptitious and stealthy. It was _hard._ What can I say? I needed a break from the dullness.)

Ahem. As I was saying, I turned my attention to the two other female burglars. One girl, who I recognized as the one who had shook her head when Cat asked them on their preferences, had light brown hair cut short in a bob, light skin, and green eyes that made her seem constantly on alert. Her whole demeanor mirrored that image, as she rocked back and forth on her heels and bounced on the her toes as she listened Cat speak.

 _Dam,_ I thought. _This girl must be even more ADHD than I am._

Next I shifted my gaze to the other girl. This girl had dark curly hair that fell to the middle of her back. Her tan face was peppered with an array of dark freckles, dusted so lightly and delicately that they looked a bit like sprinkles on a cupcake, (and yes, I know it's weird for me to say that). The lower half of her face seemed pretty enough, though I couldn't see the top half (her nose, her eyes and eyebrows), since it was blocked by a dark green beanie that sat low on her head. And I noticed that, even though she wore a dark grey sweater that seemed to droop off of her thin frame, revealing nothing but her shoulders and her bra straps (I blushed when I saw this; forgive me for being a _gentleman_ ), I could still tell that she felt uncomfortable in the clothes she wore: the revealing sweater, the super-tight black skinny jeans, the dark boots that climbed to her knees. It was like she was _trying_ to be as revealing as the other two girls. Like she was trying to fit in. To go unnoticed, fly below the radar. My theory was further confirmed as she adjusted the saggy beanie she wore, and she kept tugging it down. Apparently, though, her efforts didn't go unnoticed, because her nervous habits and my attention were both broken by someone interrupting both.

"Alicia!" Cat half-yelled, half-whispered. It came out more like a stage-whisper, and I suspected that she was still trying to be a little quiet for anyone who was super close-by (like me!). "Have you even been paying attention to me?" she asked, someone frustrated. "Have you been listening to the apartment numbers I've been telling you?"

Alicia, since that was her name apparently, stared at that ground for a few seconds, her face still not fully visible to me, before shaking her head in shame. I felt kinda bad for her, but I was also grateful for her reprimanding, because I realized that I hadn't been listening either. (See, this is the part where I was being stupid. Intelligence would have taught me to try to find out which girl was going to be looting my parent's apartment so I could take her down first. But noooooo.)

"Do you need me to say it all over again?" Cat asked with an annoyed huff as she placed a hand on her hip and flipped her long, strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder.

 _Gods,_ thought. _She is such a diva. She belongs in the Aphrodite cabin._ I immediately felt bad for thinking that, as I remembered how un-divalike Piper was.

I guess Alicia nodded, because Cat rolled her eyes and said, "Fine. But listen up this time." Alicia nodded again, and I did too, subconsciously leaning forward and straining to hear my apartment number be called. "Forrest, you take the first few rooms, apartments 301-310. Alicia, you get 311-320. And I'll do 321-330. Sound good?" Alicia and the bright-eyed girl, who I realized was probably Forrest, both gave an emphatic nod, but I barely noticed.

I was still taking in the fact that my apartment number, #321, was only minutes away from being attacked by this girl Cat, who I had sat and listened to like an idiot for the past few minutes when I could have been taking her down.

I turned my attention back to Cat, but the fair redheaded girl wasn't there. I whipped my head around as I heard the familiar click of boots on the floor, and I spied her moving down the hall towards my apartment.

 _My_ apartment, number 321. My apartment, which my mom had specifically picked for me when I was younger and we first moved in, just because it was 3-2-1. My apartment, which was going to be broken into first, since it was at the beginning of the hallway.

The blood in my veins, which only minutes ago had seemed cool and icy, began to boil with rage. My eyes turned red, my vision blurry and fuzzy. And my throat seemed to burn with the bile that was begging to come up, though I pushed it down. I set my sights on Cat's retreating form as she neared Apartment 321, her hips swaying with confidence. As I got up from my ninja-stance on the floor, my body still frozen in a crouch, I had only thought on my mind:

 _Nobody messes with this ninja's house._

 **...I almost dressed up as a ninja one year for Halloween, but then I decided to be a princess instead. Anyway, thank you for reading this chapter; I hope you liked it! Please tell me how you felt in a review, by favoriting/following, or answering the question on the poll on my profile. Also, if there are ever any one-shots you want me to try to write, just tell me, and I'll give it a go. Thank you again! REVIEW!**

 **Have a great day!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	6. I Pay My Respects To A Door

**"There's 104 days of summer vacation, and school comes along just to end it..." Man, I love** ** _Phineas and Ferb._** **Sorry- random, I know. Thanks to those who reviewed, favorited, and followed. Here is Chapter 6 of "The Death Of Me"; enjoy!**

I trembled with rage.

No girl in some skimpy catsuit was allowed to just go into my house and steal my stuff and hurt my family. No. I wouldn't let her.

But it seemed as if she would get away with doing that _before_ I got the chance to not let her, because I saw her curved form disappear around the corner, slinking into the door frame.

Afraid that she was already inside, I leaped up so fast that I couldn't even remember standing up, and I raced down the hall after her, scrambling along the wall and not even caring about my clumsy, sloppy movements that included limbs flopping all over the place. It probably looked like one of those old dance marathon shows from the '80's, just arms and legs and heads all over the place. And it if it weren't for the fact that tons of people were in danger, it might have even been comical to _me_ , and not just the people who laughed at the conjured-up image of me doing that.

I heard a light knock on the door, and a pause. The pause seemed permanent; Cat was perfectly silent. There was no sound, no breathing. I imagined her ear pressed against the door, her pretty face scrunched into a scowl as she pursed her lips and listened with all her might.

There was no noise.

But then I heard a tremendous _crack_ , a sound analogous to the one I had heard downstairs about twenty or thirty minutes ago, when these crazy burglars first came in. The noise had been the same one, that same unpleasant noise that makes you wince as something is broken into a dozen pieces.

It was the sound a door makes when it's being broken down.

Before, downstairs in the lobby, it had seemed like it had taken about a minute or so to break down the door. But with Cat, I peered around the corner and saw her extracting her right foot from an enormous hole in the door, which lay flat on the ground. She pulled her heeled boot out of the rubble, calmly wiping the sawdust and splinters clinging to her shoes on her thigh, and something suddenly occurred to me: I realized not only that those spiky boots could do a lot more damage than I originally thought that they could, but that the girl herself could do a lot more damage than I originally thought she could.

After all, she had broken down a door in _much_ less time than several burly guys had taken to break down a door of the same exact size, shape, and material. And all this was coming from a girl named _Cat_.

Having meticulously dusted off her shoes and thoroughly checked them- _twice_ , I might add- for any more debris, Cat walked over through the door frame and across the door. I seethed; this was _my_ door, the one that I knocked on after coming back on Friday nights from the vending machine down the hall to grab some popcorn for movie nights with my mom; the one that I had opened up for trick-or-treaters in our building on Halloween night after going trick-or-treating myself; the one that I had opened with my own house key more times than I could count. This door held _meaning_ , it meant something to me. It was a part of my life in this apartment.

And here was this girl, strutting across it like it was a catwalk, and she was the star of the show, which she probably thought. Oh, and by the way, for those of you who were wondering: No, I did _not_ mean to say Cat was walking on a _cat_ walk, although that would have been pretty cool if I had.

I waited until Cat was definitely in the house, and then, very cautiously and carefully, and tiptoed across the door frame as quick as I could. I jumped into the apartment, and began to walk away. But then something stopped me, and I looked back.

The door looked so sad by itself, so lonely and melancholy. It was like something you might see in a war movie from the '90's, like that one with Tom Hanks: _Saving Private..._ Someone. The door lay there like a fallen soldier, its knob twisted in like a broken arm, and the ostentatious hole in the center of the door where Cat had kicked it in stared at me like a gaping bullet wound, the fatal injury to the heart that always kills of the hero.

I'd never thought about my door being a hero before, and I kind of hope I don't ever again.

I allowed myself one last, lingering and respectful gaze at my front door before I whirled around and found myself in the kitchen. Our apartment is pretty small, so two steps can take you from one room to the next without straining yourself too hard.

I grew depressed standing here. The last time I had stood here had been roughly 24 hours ago, and yet it felt like a lifetime ago when I had watched like a creepy stalker as my parents cried over my death.

Blinking away invisible tears that threatened to surface, I looked around the tidy kitchen area, the stove to my right, and heard something. It sounded like that noise that mice make when they're raiding your pantry (trust me, I have heard that sound _way_ too many times for my taste). Only this sounded bigger; like more of a threat.

I looked towards the pantry and saw guess-who. (I bet you'll _never_ guess who it was!)

Cat was rummaging through the pantry, tossing random boxes of uncooked noodles and stale cookies onto the floor behind her. It appeared that she wasn't being picky, but I wanted to yell at her "Hey! How 'bout you be a little more careful with those boxes? And a little _quieter?_ " She was making an awful lot of noise. In fact, I was shocked that my parents hadn't appeared yet to see what all the ruckus was.

I assumed that Cat thought that nobody was home, and that my parents were either out of the house, or they were just in the master bedroom in the back.

 _Oh gods, please let them be gone, please let them be gone, please please please..._

"What are you doing?"

That voice. I knew that voice. It was a voice that had comforted me on many other occasions. But this, unfortunately, was not one of those times.

"What are you doing?" my mother repeated.

I fixed my gaze onto the small, wiry form that stood in the doorway from the living room/den to the kitchen. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail looked awfully similar to a rat's nest, or like maybe one of those squirrel-things had taken up an untidy residence on top of her brown mop of hair. She had two thick circles under her eyes, like she had barely slept through a the roughest night of her life- as I suspected it had been. Her lips were thin, pale, and devoid of all color, it seemed.

 _She looks so...weak,_ I thought with dismay. She wore the same grey sweatpants and dark blue hoodie that she'd had on when I saw her yesterday, and I was disappointed that she was wearing her "sad clothes" still.

See, I could remember a time from when I was younger, when a friend of my mom's from work had recently died. After she first found out, I had come home from school (the first one in a long line of schools that I got kicked out of, by the way) and found her sitting on the couch by herself, crying with a clump of snotty tissues grouped on the cushion next to her and another one held to her face.

"Mom?" I'd said in my cute, innocent, little-kid voice. "Why are you crying?"

"Well, Percy," she'd said, dropping the tissue and pulling me gently into her lap. "I just lost a really good friend of mine, and I won't get her back."

"Oh," I'd said softly, not really grasping the whole idea. I'd fiddled with the strings on her dark blue hoodie. It had been new, and she'd loved it because it was so comfortable. "Isn't this one of your favorite shirts?"

"Yes..."

"Then why are you wearing it right now? If you're sad, it will just make the shirt sad, and then you won't be happy anymore when you wear it."

She'd looked down at her pants, which were grey cotton sweatpants. Then she'd smiled meekly at me, and I thought I'd seen a few of the tears in her eyes dry up just a little bit. "Well, sweetie, I guess these will just have to be my sad clothes from now on."

I remembered that moment with her so vividly now, and I had no doubt in my mind that she had thought of me when she had put them on yesterday afternoon. I also didn't doubt that she wouldn't be wearing anything except for her "sad clothes" for a long, long time.

"Um..." said Cat, obviously struggling with a believable excuse for just what she was doing, rifling through some strange lady's pantry. Clearly, she was unprepared for this scenario, and had believed that nobody was home. I watched the girl's icy blue eyes dart around the room, as if she would find a good excuse plastered to the wall behind my mom, or that the right words would be dangling from the ceiling like a chandelier, swaying the same way Cat's voice would wobble if she didn't think of a good enough lie.

"Are you...are you stealing?" My mom filled the gap of silence again, her mourning obviously not clotting her vision her clouding her sharp mind. Her eyes narrowed, and she stepped backwards into the living room, starting to disappear behind the corner. I tried to spot where she was going, and then I spied my mom's cell phone on the couch in there.

 _I bet she fell asleep from crying_ , I thought, my heart suddenly dipping with depression at the idea of my mom literally crying herself to sleep.

My spirits jumped back up though as I watched my mom leap towards the couch and grab her phone. She made a single swiping motion to the right with her thumb, clicked on something with the same finger, and quickly typed in a word or number with 3 letters or digits. I suspected that she had brought the screen to the "Emergency Call" page, and I almost cheered with joy. Always knowing the best way to handle a scenario like this. That was my mom, alright.

Her thumb was poised directly over where I thought the green "dial" button was, and I knew that she wouldn't hesitate to call; in fact, I could see her finger move down to press the screen, almost in slow-motion, but she hadn't yet clicked in when I heard a loud "click".

I looked up, and the sight I saw made my heart jump out of my invisible skin.

Cat was standing in between me and my mother, her feet planted apart, and she held a gun in her head.

It was pointed at my mom.

"You press that button," she said, "and I'll blow your hand off."

 **Talk about tension, right? Please let me know what you thought in the review section below. Please vote (on the poll on my profile), favorite, follow, but above all, REVIEW! One word can make a world of difference to a fanfic writer like me. Thanks for reading this chapter, I hope you enjoyed it!**

 **Have a great week.**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	7. I Get Beat Up By A Girl

**Hello, lovely readers. I hope your day has been amazing so far. To start things off, let me say a huge thank-you to everyone who favorited, followed, and reviewed for the last chapter (except for one reviewer, and you** ** _know_** **who you are). Also let me say a MASSIVE thank-you to Lucian Naruto: my friend, your review was one of the most wonderful and heartfelt reviews I have ever received. The fact that you would defend me like that, and only a few hours after that review was posted, is incredible to me. Your friendship and loyalty has meant so much to me, so thank you. OK, now everyone please enjoy Chapter 7!**

"You press that button, and I'll blow your hand off."

I stared at Cat in astonishment. The situation was just not computing in my brain. Cat threatening my mother. Cat holding a dangerous weapon. Cat pointing said weapon at my mother.

 _What the Hades is going on here?_ I thought. It was like everything was occurring in slow motion: everything was extra clear, and the edges of all the objects in the room seemed sharper, more defined. It was almost like I had developed temporary super-senses. A miniscule motion caught my attention out of the corner of my eye, and as I turned to see my mom's thumb moving towards the "call" button for 911, I heard a sound like the crack of a whip, and another object traveled parallel with my head. The object was small and cylindrical, a darkish color, and it smelled sulfuric.

It was a bullet.

The slow motion sensation ceased, and time traveled in the opposite manner: Everything sped up and became blurry. My body seemed to have a mind of its own while I observed myself, shocked, as I reacted with lightning-fast reflexes.

I swerved around Cat, zipping past her faster than I ever would have imagined, and chased after the bullet. It was like a race between me and that stupid piece of metal, a race that lasted only a split second, a race in which we were both trying to reach the finish line first, and that finish line was my mom.

I was so determined stopping that dam bullet that it actually took me a moment to realize that there was a bullet resting in the palm of my hand; I turned it over with my fingers and looked at it in surprise. Today must have been my lucky day (although you wouldn't exactly think so, since I'd died the same day and all), because I had won the race: I had snatched the bullet out of the air that was _millimeters_ away from the center of my mom's forehead.

A relieved puff of air escaped from my lungs. At least for the moment, I had saved my mom, although she didn't even seem to have realized it: she had dropped to the ground, clutching her head, the moment I caught the bullet, and I couldn't help but admire her smart reflexes. She must not have realized that she wasn't dead yet; I wanted to tell her- I really did- but not only did it seem impossible, there was also Cat to deal with- a bigger threat in the room than my mom's temporary worries.

Not knowing what to do with it, I released the bullet from its resting spot in my hand. It slipped through my fingers, and I felt the smooth texture glide swiftly towards the floor, where it bounced against the hard wooden planks, rolling to a stop after it was done making a tremendous amount of clatter.

I whirled around, astonished that it had made any noise at all. I just assumed that since I'd touched it, and I was invisible and inaudible, the bullet would become invisible and inaudible too. But by glancing around, I gleaned from Cat's similarly shocked expression that she had not only seen and heard the bullet drop to the ground, she had also witnessed the part where it was snatched out of the air.

"Wha- How? I... I don't..." she stuttered, her gun shaking as she shook her head and tried to compose herself. "How... how did you do that?" She asked my mom, in a voice that was nowhere near threatening, but more along the lines of blatant confusion.

But my mom, apparently, was too smart to stick around for questions from the girl with a gun in her hand. Once she processed that there was _not_ a bullet-sized hole in her head, she had scrambled into the bedroom while Cat was speaking to her, taking her phone with her.

 _No doubt to call the cops behind a closed door_ , I thought. After watching my mom disappear into the next room and vigilantly observing that her entire speedy frame was tucked away behind the door, I turned my attention to the highly unwanted burglar, who, for some reason, was _still_ in my house.

I launched my entire 150 pounds of weight at her in a blind rage that _she_ would _dare_ to hurt _my_ _ **mother**_ **.** Since I was dead, and I basically considered myself to be some sort of ghost at this point, you can't imagine my shock when my efforts to tackle Cat actually gave way and bore fruit. (FYI, I was getting _very_ tired of being surprised all the time.)

Cat was pushed to the ground, her arms and legs sprawling everywhere like a spider sent spinning on its back. Her feet kicked up in the air, and when her face contorted into an ugly bucktooth way, a god-awful sound like a guffaw escaped, and I was reminded of some overall-wearing, barefoot country bumpkin that you might see on an old show like _The Beverly Hillbillies_ (my mom was a big fan of old shows like that, like _I Love Lucy_ and _The Andy Griffith Show_ , so I was thoroughly educated on that). As a matter of fact, the whole scene would have been fairly hilarious had it not been for- well, you know what, now that I think about it, it _was_ pretty funny, actually.

 _She totally deserved that,_ I thought with a hint of pride, and I couldn't help a small bit of satisfaction bubble up into my chest. That is, until Cat did one of those martial-art moves where you kick your legs up, and your body rolls up into a standing position. (Okay, I'll admit it: it was cool, and I've always really wanted to be able to do that.) She looked around frantically, a wild look in her eyes, and _then_ she really decided to bust out the martial-art moves. Her hands sliced through the air as if they were cutting through planks of wood, her legs bucking out like a wild stallion, and her elbows, knees, and fists especially were used to punch every available area of air that she possibly could.

Still somewhat hyped up on the adrenaline rush I'd had earlier, I managed to dodge the first few punches, carefully avoiding the places where I thought she would strike next. If I could go back and change one thing about that moment, I would change my idiotic inability to just step away from Cat, because then the domino effect of chaotic events that passed in the days and weeks after that might not have occurred. But at that moment, the only thing I could really concentrate on was staying away from the tornado/whirlwind of dangerous limbs and appendages that was Cat. Unfortunately, I've never been the best at focusing on stuff like that- actually at focusing on anything, really- so it didn't take long for my trance of awareness to be broken by a single punch.

" _OW!"_ I yelled as the girl's first collided with my throat. The cry came out gurgly and warbled, and I could feel a disgusting mixture of bile and blood rising to the top of my throat. I leaned to the side and spit, looking away as the blend shot out. Cat's disbelieving eyes usually looked like orbs of ice, but right now they looked like two giant blue moons: the once-in-a-lifetime kind.

"Who are _you_?" she asked. "Where did you come from?" Her voice was filled with incredulity that was nearly palpable.

It took me seven agonizingly awkward seconds to realize that she was talking to me.

"Um...what?" I croaked, and I was once again surprised to hear the unpleasant gravelly tone that my voice had from not speaking in such a long time.

"Who are you?" she asked again, only this time it was much more demanding, confident, and... _forceful_.

"Uh, I'm Percy Jackson," I said stupidly. Well, what else was I supposed to say? I decided to continue with introductions. "And this is my apartment."

Her eyes widened, then narrowed. She squinted at me out of two tiny little eye slits. "You live here?" I nodded, not wanting to have to explain the whole dead-thing, and that's when the sheer impossibility of this situation finally caught up to me. She inclined her head towards the back bedroom. "And...is that your mom in there?" I nodded again, but much more slowly this time. I didn't want to hand out information to this girl, now that she could see me for some insane reason, but I figured the resemblance between my mom and I was strong enough that it didn't really matter that much.

"Are you gonna let me rob your house?" She asked. _And I thought I asked dumb questions_ , I thought, but I shook my head anyway. I noticed her hand subtly gravitating towards her pocket, and I suddenly remembered that I had only ever retrieved the bullet, but not the gun. "Well then I'm sorry, but it looks like I'll have to kill you too."

I jumped into action, reaching for both her hand and her pocket. I didn't think she could hurt me, but that gun could _definitely_ still do damage to my mom. I grabbed her hand, twisting it backwards, and she reacted by swinging her left leg up and kicking me in the stomach. I let out a wheeze (hey man; those heels can _hurt_ ), involuntarily bending over as she pried her arm free of my iron rip, and I was startled by her strength, which I guess I had clearly underestimated.

Still gripping my stomach, I was able to dodge her first blow, and the second one, but the third punch was a right hook that sent a clod of spit- with a metallic hint of blood, I might add- shooting out of my mouth. I shook my head, desperately trying to gain some focus, but Cat was once again too quick for me. My left arm caught a blow at the wrist, and my hand fell limply onto my stomach. She wrenched my right arm, the one that wasn't holding my gut, around my back and held it there, pressing it up as much as she could without breaking it. Her long, recently-painted nails dug painfully into my skin.

"Did you really think that you could fight me, and _win_?" she whispered. Her voice was soft yet foreboding, and the presence of it right in my ear sent unwanted shivers down my spine. "I bet you did, didn't you?" She scoffed. "Men and their egos. Always underestimating us girls. Well, I hope you're able to taste some of the satisfaction I get _everytime_ I kill weak little pricks like you."

I was too confused to even be angry or insulted; how in Hades's name was she able to see me, hear me, and touch me, if I was not only _dead,_ but also a friggin _ghost_?! I couldn't make heads or tails of it. In fact, I was so puzzled, that I just stopped struggling.

Cat must have taken that as a sign of surrender (she was completely mistaken; don't worry, I wouldn't give up _that_ easily: not with the baddies I've faced in my life). She raised her gun to my forehead, and the situation felt too unlikely, too impossible, that I somehow knew she wouldn't end up pulling the trigger, or if she did, my forehead wouldn't be right there to welcome the bullet.

 _You can't kill me_ , was all I thought. _I'm already dead._

"Hey!" she suddenly cried out, and I looked up and around me, confused as to what the exclamation was about. Her eyes were pointed down at me, but I could tell that she wasn't absorbing anything with those terrifyingly icy blue orbs. Looking, but not _seeing_. "What the hell...where did you go?"

Her hand was still holding the gun, and it was still held up to my forehead, but it was...different, somehow. Before, it had been right at my forehead, but now...Now it was _in_ my forehead. I wiggled my right arm, the one that had been pinned behind my back, and discovered that I could freely move it around. My left arm was still limply pressed against my stomach like a wilted flower pressed to a tombstone, but at least I wasn't restrained anymore.

I whirled around, facing Cat, and wrenched free of her. She was still staring at the spot where I had been, shaking her head in confusion and mumbling slightly. I glanced at my hands again, and was slightly-less surprised than I usually was to find that I could see through them to my feet, which I could see through to the wooden planks of the floor.

I understood a little bit better, even if for only that moment. I still didn't get the whole picture, but all that mattered at that moment was that I wasn't restrained, visible, _or_ audible when I tackled Cat for the second time like a pro-football player. The only difference was that, this time, I was actually smart enough to grab the gun and fling it away from her reach.

She still seemed shocked that she had been taken down by an invisible force, even though she probably knew it had something to do with me. After a second though, she began to open her lips to protest, so I had to clamp my down over her mouth to prevent any shouts (I had already had a small sample of what her powerful lungs could do, and I didn't really want anymore demonstrations). She was silent for a few moments, and I figured this was my time to shine.

Generally, I consider myself to be a pretty good guy: I never picked fights at school (without reason, at least), and I was always nice to girls at school (when they were nice to _me,_ of course), while the other guys would pick on them mercilessly. So naturally I felt kinda bad about preparing to hit a girl. I mean, for some reason, that was like the universal law: that you didn't hit a girl, no matter what. No matter how much that girl wanted to be treated like a guy, or how mean she was, or how snotty she was.

Still, this girl had broken into my home, almost killed my mom, sort-of almost killed me, and still had the nerve to be extraordinarily good-looking while doing, and that just kind of pissed me off. So it didn't take much work for me to summon enough angry strength, but it did take me a lot of effort to restrain that strength and anger only enough to kind of lightly slap her elbow (I'm sorry, it was the best I could do).

I swear I didn't even hit her that hard. But apparently Cat was very sensitive, or maybe she just liked to put on a good show, because she started crying. Fat, wet tears dripped down her light face, and her mascara began to run (or was it eyeshadow? I don't know. I'm a guy, and the smartest one at that. Am I really expected to know that much about makeup?)

"Hey, hey," I said, trying to calm her down. Call me a sissy, but I hate it when girls are upset. It's not even that I feel bad for them; I just don't know what to do. "Don't cry. _Please_ don't cry. Seriously." Me being the genius I am, I removed my hand from her mouth to try to cajole her into staying quiet. She must have predicted I would do that, because it seemed to be just the opportunity she was waiting for.

"HELP!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.

 **I hope that everyone liked this chapter. I tried to add in a little more action, and the ending isn't so much of a cliffhanger. Anyway, please pour out your intense feelings to me in the review section below. I LOVE YOUR FEELS! Please follow and favorite while you're in the neighborhood too.**

 **Have a wonderful week!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	8. I Make It Rain Gold Glitter

**Hey peeps! Wazzup? I've got another chapter for ya, and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, followed, and favorited for the last chapter. I really appreciate it! Thanks again, and please enjoy!**

"HELP!" Cat screamed, and I clamped my hands down over my ears. Her awful wailing was like a banshee, it was so horrible. I'd never heard anything quite like it.  
Although I still had the girl pinned down using my legs and my torso, I saw that sitting here like an idiot, allowing her to scream to her heart's content and practically waiting for one of her 8 nasty friends to come help her, was probably not my smartest move ever.

I realized my mistake too late.

She backhanded me with an arm that had previously been pinned she had somehow wiggled out from beneath her body, and I stumbled backwards, landing awkwardly on my butt while she leaped up and lurched towards me. I saw a glint of something silver and shiny, just a quick glint, and then I was being chased around my apartment by a girl in a catsuit with a knife.

Around and around the room we apartment we ran, racing around the dining room table, jumping over the sofa, bouncing from one couch to the next, and tumbling under the kitchen table like a skilled gymnast. It was a bit of a crazy scene, one that you might see in a cartoon episode, like an episode of _Scooby Doo_ or something, where the characters chase each other from one door to the next but the doors lead to different areas. It was very chaotic, and I found myself getting exhausted purely from the frustration of this scene not going anywhere.

"Come back here!" she yelled, and somehow I found room to scoff in between my ragged breathing. _Yeah right_ , I thought. _As if I'm gonna stop running, turn around, and_ wait _for the crazy girl with the knife to catch up to me so that it'll be easier for her to stab my organs. Pfft. I'll have more holes in me than Ares has scars on his face._

An idea suddenly dawned on me, coming up over the horizon of my mind and illuminating my thoughts like the sun.

I closed my eyes, concentrating: I imagined that all of the energy left was coursing through my veins, tiny and blue like miniature rivers and streams. It was like I was the Mother Earth Gaea, and the only adrenaline I had left was barely visible on the surface (no doubt I looked like a wreck, drained like a raisin). There wasn't a lot, but it was enough to get me by on what I needed to do.

I managed to put on an extra burst of speed, and my feet seemed to carry me where they knew I needed to go, while my arms had a mind of their own, pumping furiously at my sides. I raced down the hallway, past my mom's door, which was still shut, and I felt bad when I heard her murmuring, her hushed prayers that she would be safe. (Whether she was praying to the gods as a whole, to my father specifically, or to God with a capital "G", I did not know.) I assumed she'd already called the cops, so that gave me only a little while to do what I needed to do. Judging by how long ago my mom had dialed the number and how long Cat and I had been fighting and doing whatever it was we were doing now, I had five minutes, tops.

And approximately two seconds to ditch Cat.

I whipped around the corner and found myself at the end of the hallway. I saw the door to my room, which was closed all the way, and I gingerly opened it so that it was slightly ajar, as if I had just raced in there and closed it haphazardly behind me. Then I jumped across the hallway to the wall, and to the door opposite of mine, pressing myself against the door.

In the split-second that I had alone to myself- which, by the way, was the first alone-time I'd had in quite a while- everything quieted, until the only thing you could hear was my ragged breathing, cutting through the quiet as easily as a knife. I closed my mouth in an effort to be silent, but then another sound rose up from the ranks to replace that one. It was the pounding of my heart, and it was going wild, flying off the charts in the loudness-meter. I would have tried to make that stop too, but then, of course, I would be dead. Then again, I was already dead. (Or at least halfway there. I still hadn't quite figured that part of it out.)

In the almost-ominous darkness of the bathroom, I caught a glance of myself, and I was surprised, not only that I could actually _see_ myself, but also that I was in such a rugged state. My sea-green eyes, usually so vibrant and vivid, were slightly faded, though I didn't know whether their change in luster was due to my dead-like state or just stress and fear, or both.

Suddenly from around the corner, I saw Cat leap towards my room, halting at the door so quickly that you could practically hear the tire screeches. Without missing a beat- this girl seemed to have no hesitation, whatsoever, and that worried me- she gently pushed on the door open and crept inside. I smiled to myself when I saw her flinch slightly, first at the creak of my old, unoiled hinges, and then at the sound the ancient floorboards made when she stepped on them. I thanked the gods once again for making my mom pick this apartment.

As she made her way into my room, I mirrored her movements, stepping out of my hiding spot from the darkness of the bathroom, crossing over the threshold into the hallway. Suddenly, when Cat had reached the center of my bedroom, I stepped on a squeaky floorboard, and, ironically, I instantly cursed the very gods who I had just thanked. What can I say? I'm a teenage guy. My moods change.

Rather than waiting around doing nothing, I actually _did_ something this time (can I get a round of applause? Thank you).

I launched myself high up into the air, jumping up like a spring, and held onto the top of the door frame with both hands. Grunting a little from the effort, I swung forward slightly to give me some starting momentum, and I swung back like a pendulum, because apparently that's how science and physics work (thanks, Newton). I planted both of my feet on the wall for just a split second. Then, at the same time that Cat was turning around from all the ruckus (yes, I said 'ruckus') I was making, I launched myself off of the back wall and swung forward.

Cat's icy blue eyes widened in shock as my feet hurtled full-throttle at her, and I our bodies collided like two cars on a freeway. The aftermath of the impact was about as bad, although it was more like a two-teenage pile-up instead of a ten-car pile-up.

I felt kinda bad, cuz I think my feet were (unintentionally) aimed right at her chest, so when we collided I think I hit her in the...upper, sensitive...lady area (if you know what I mean). And, I accidentally landed _on_ her instead of directly tackling her like I had planned to, but then again, I made that plan up over the course of about three seconds, so who can really blame me that much? Plus, it had apparently worked very effectively, seeing as how now Cat was pinned underneath me, wildly thrashing to get out and having what looked like a bit of a temper tantrum.

"Get off of me!" she shrieked, trying to buck me off of her but, fortunately, she failed miserably.

"No! Why on _Earth_ would I do that?" I cried.

"HELP!" was her response, and I just sighed and rolled my eyes. I was beginning to realize just how big of a drama queen this little model-like redhead was.

Still, she was undeniably gorgeous, and there was no getting around that. Even now, as I looked down at her face, I could see that, past the contorted expression she wore due ot all the screaming, her eyes were that stunningly rare color of blue, and her skin was flawless, and then there was that shock of red hair... Staring down at her like that, I suddenly became very aware of the situation we were in: pretty girl pinned underneath muscular guy in said muscular guy's bedroom. Yep: as silly as it was, I might have been just a _teensy_ bit embarrassed by this very uncomfortable (or comfortable, depending on...well, you) arrangement.

But you know what? Screw that. Sue me for being a gentleman, and see how far you get in court.

My conflicting (and rather embarrassing) thoughts and her shrieks of protests were both suddenly interrupted by a disturbance that came from my right. My entire window exploded into a dangerous flurry of glass, and I closed my eyes instinctively. Fortunately, my shoulders were hunched up, and I was already turned away slightly, so when the glass hit, it didn't do anything permanent or serious. In fact, I think I probably saved Cat's life by being on top of her like that. After all, I took the impact of most of the glass (not like she would've cared, or noticed, or even thanked me).

I rolled off of Cat just to give her some breathing room (and because it had just gotten to be too awkward), grabbing the knife that lay at her side, and I assessed the cause and effect of the glass explosion. Cause: A girl with hair that fell in long dark curls and miniscule smatterings of freckles on her cheeks stepping inside of my bedroom from the fire escape outside the window. Her clothes were loose and comfortable, and they seemed to be her only way of hiding from the world, because beyond that she was quite pretty. Her beanie was covering her face, but I could identify her by her slouchy stature and subdued clothing even before she looked up and my sea-green eyes made contact with her dark brown ones.

It was her. The twin. Bianca's lookalike.

Alicia.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, and I was surprised when it came out as a stammer. Was I afraid? If so, what? This girl had posed no threat up until now, and even now she was just standing there silently. She didn't appear to have any weapons on her, but then I spotted something white knotted into her right hand: a pillowcase, and I suddenly recalled how when the bunch of burglars had first waltzed into this building, they'd had some pretty strange weapons of choice, and I honestly didn't want to see what any of them could do, even with a pillowcase. After all, I'd already seen what Cat could do with a cheese grater. Plus, this girl could have other weapons on her, like Cat had had that gun and knife tucked snugly onto her person, and I hadn't noticed at all.

The room was quiet. Cat had stopped screaming (thankfully) when Alicia burst in, and she was now watching the staring contest between me and the dark-haired girl like it was the most riveting tennis match that she had ever seen. Alicia and I still hadn't broken eye contact, and I didn't plan to be the first to look away.

30 seconds passed, and I still hadn't broken eye contact. Something told me that it was very important to maintain this gaze between us. And although my eyes were starting to water, I am the son of Poseidon, so I knew I could hold out longer. But something also told me that Alicia would sooner die than break eye contact.

A full minute had passed by without her saying anything, and I was starting to get nervous. Personally, from my own experience, I know that when someone doesn't speak for that long, it's generally not a good sign.

"Alicia?" I said cautiously.

"The king is calling you."

I blinked. "What?"

"The king is calling you," she said, in a voice just as monotone and dead-pan as the first time.

"I don't...I don't understand," I said, but all the same, she was making me nervous. I became to gently walk towards her, softly, almost as if I was gliding. My hand moved with a sixth sense towards my pocket, where my sword was located.

"The king is calling you," she repeated, and then she said it again. "The king is calling you." And again. "The king is calling you." And again. And again. "The king is calling you. The king is calling you. The king is calling you."

Something flickered in her eyes, something not quite right, and to this day, I still can't quite pinpoint what it was, but whatever that glint was, it was certainly enough for some very important information to be revealed to me. My grip tightened on my knife.

I sprung up and away from Cat, kicking her to the side forcefully, and launched myself towards the dark-haired girl in front of my bedroom window.

While I was mid-air, her body went through a transformation that seemed familiar, although I couldn't place it. Before my very eyes, she seemed to shrivel up, her clothes withering away like a snake shades its skin, and the beautiful young girl with the dark eyes was replaced by a gray, withered-up old hag. She was hunched over, yellow fangs protruding from black gums, and terrifying claws grew from the tips of her fingers. She hissed at me, and her black, soulless eyes flashed.

But as I landed in front of her, my knife in hand, she was back to looking like Bianca di Angelo. The ugly old hag was gone.

Still, I trusted my gut instincts more than I trusted my eyes. Reaching out with the hand not holding my sword, I wrenched Alicia's arm behind her, twisting her into a vice-like grip that I had practiced many times with Annabeth and Luke, and I knew she could not get out of it easily. For now, she was stuck.

But she didn't seem to care about that. She twisted her head around, struggling to look at me, though I don't know why that was so important. Finally, she managed to gain a position where she was staring straight at me, and once again, we had seemingly unbreakable eye contact.

Her warm chocolate-brown eyes flashed, turning into the soulless black ones that belonged on the old hag. "The king is calling you," she whispered. And with that, I plunged my knife into her stomach, and the beautiful girl that looked like Bianca di Angelo exploded into gold dust.

 **WHAT?! Gold dust?! What on Earth could this mean? I don't know (after all, I'm just the writer), but maybe you'll be able to tell me in the review section below! Please, it's urgent! LOL. Seriously though, please review, follow, favorite, vote on my poll, and most importantly:**

 **Have a great day!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	9. I'm A Cliche Deer Stuck In Headlights

**Hola, mi amigos y amigas! I'm sorry about this chapter being a day late, but unfortunately, I have a little thing in my life called** ** _school_** **(ever heard of it?), and in my school, there is a certain English teacher who seems to think that he is some deep philosopher and he just LOVES handing out essay assignments, so...yeah. There's my excuse (I know it's not very good but it's the best I can do.) Thanks to all who read/reviewed/favorited/followed/voted last chapter. Anyway, please enjoy this chapter, and REVIEW, follow, favorite, vote...but enjoy, most importantly.**

For a moment there was nothing. Nothing but a stunned silence, a sound so loud that it actually hurt my ears and made them pop. Thoughts buzzed around in my head: _Did I seriously just do that? Gold dust- so she really was a monster! But what kind of monster? And what was that she said- 'The king is calling you'? What does that mean?_ But I verbalized none of my questions, for it would've felt wrong, almost disrespectful, like someone laughing at a funeral or talking loudly during church. We just watched the tragic gold dust that only a moment ago had been in the exotic form of Bianca di Angelo, staring with a quiet reverence and awe as the particles swirled up into a cloud, like sand, and drifted off lazily into a breeze that I realized later didn't even exist, since there wasn't a draft in my room, and the window and door was shut.

But then, a scream broke the silence, and it originated from Cat. Of course. Because- let's be honest here- when is that girl _not_ busy screaming her head off?

"YOU JUST _KILLED_ HER!" the insane redhead screeched, and I plugged my ears in an effort to block out some of that noise. I even tried clamping my hands over her mouth to help muffle the sound, but it didn't work; in fact, she may have even screamed harder after that. It did no good, and I found out very quickly that my actions were useless. There was just no shutting this girl up.

Grabbing her knife- which seemed to be about the fifth one that she pulled from some unknown hiding place on her person- she crossed the three feet between us, lumbering towards me, swinging the knife wildly. She was still spouting off the same words- "You _killed_ her!"- thought it seemed to be in more of a stunned, blind rage, because her stabs and jabs with the knife weren't very accurate. Although I couldn't follow her wrist long enough to grab her knife and disarm her, I _was_ able to pin her to the ground very quickly; in a matter of seconds, actually, which was apparently not what she wanted. The idea of me actually being able to take her down didn't seem to sit too well with her.

In almost humorous retaliation, she kept on swinging her puny knife, wielding it like an axe which, having been a little more well-acquainted with her after the past few hours, I knew she could a _lot_ of damage with. I mean, for heaven's sake, the girl's first weapon was a cheese grater. Anything was a weapon in her hands. She could probably take the gentlest, most innocent thing in the world and use it as a weapon of mass destruction.

The thought of Cat pelting baby kittens and chucking cute little puppies at me, screaming bloody murder at me the entire time, was enough to make me laugh out loud- I literally LOLed (although I can't say I was too happy with myself for being able to admit to that).

Apparently, in addition to being easily pinned by a guy, Cat _really_ hated being laughed at. Like, a lot.

She set her mouth loose as she made like a sailor and tossed a string of profanities at me, which I noticed steadily increased in their threatening tone as time passed:

"YOU JUST KILLED HER BECAUSE YOU KNEW SHE WAS THE ONLY INNOCENT ONE HERE!"

-and-

"WHY DON'T YOU KILL ME TOO? YOU'D BE DOING ME A FAVOR, SINCE I WOULDN'T HAVE TO STARE UP AT YOUR UGLY FACE ANYMORE!"

-and-

"DIE, YOU DIRTBAG OF USELESS SCUM!"

-and-

"YOU'RE JUST PINNING ME DOWN BECAUSE YOU KNOW I'D BEAT YOUR SILLY PRETTY-BOY ASS IF YOU LET ME UP!"

-until finally-

"F**K OFF, YOU UGLY PIECE OF S**T!"

That was the last straw for me. I could be called a killer- which was totally not true. I could take being called ugly- that wasn't true either, according to Annabeth, and Rachel, and Reyna, and Calypso, to name a few. I could also take being called "a dirtbag of useless scum", cuz, let's be honest, that's just laughable at best. Heck, I could even handle her telling me she'd have an easy time beating up "my pretty-boy ass" (I have no idea how much of that was true, but it made me blush, to say the least).

But when she started bringing out the big guns- that is, the motherload of sailor swearing- well, that's when I consented to bringing my own weapons into this little war. After all, the battle lines seemed to be a little fuzzy, what with me seemingly slicing her companion in half. So if she wanted to play this game, I'm sure me and my invisibility powers would have no problem with that.

Only problem was, before I got the chance to actually _use_ any of my powers (which I still didn't completely understand how to control), I heard a noise in the distance: a bunch of voices out in the hallway.

I jumped off of Cat, leaping over her and towards the door, probably scaring her half to death (although maybe that phrasing would be more appropriate for me and _my_ situation...) Fortunately, she didn't really say anything, just uttered a startled sound, and sat there in confusion. Leaving her behind- which, again, probably wasn't the smartest thing I ever did- I flattened myself against the wall in the hallway, peering around the corner and into the living room. Nothing.

Should I go check it out? It could be nothing. But then again, it could also be something. But what to do about Cat? She was my enemy: I couldn't just leave her there, able to sneak up on me at any moment and backstab me.

I snuck a peek back at my bedroom. Cat was still sprawled on the floor, watching me, a look of befuddlement painted plainly on her shining face. Upon meeting my gaze, she stood up and started to creep towards me apprehensively. She seemed lost, confused; it was like we were two little kids, and we had just finished a playful wrestling match, and she didn't understand what game we were playing next.

 _Stay away from me!_ I wanted to shout. _You think this is a game? Well, it's not._ She had caused me so much trouble, her and her stupid gang of burglars. There were people all throughout the building who, at this very minute, could be getting stabbed by Retlaw and Forrest and Looney and whatever the hell the other stupid names were. Because of Cat's insane, unrestrained screaming, her buddy Alicia had shown up, and then withered into an old hag, and I had killed her because I recognized her as some sort of monster. And in the door right next to me, my mom was probably either gone, climbed out of the window, or steeling herself to meet her fate like the tough soldier that she is. And it was. All. Cat's. Fault.

My angry thoughts must have showed on my face, and I guess I was making a pissed-off face, because Cat seemed to stop as she neared me in the hall, and then shrink away from my glare, like a flower withering under the harsh face of the sun. A small part of me felt guilty, but I quickly ignored the feeling, telling myself that _she_ was the one who should feel guilty.

A noise like two pots crashing together seemed to originate from the kitchen, and I rolled my eyes out of habit. No doubt that that was Cat's backup, her entourage coming to save her. As I listened to them trip over the pots and pans littered on the kitchen floor, I couldn't help but think that it would've done her some good to either get better backup, or just to ditch them for good, and try flying solo for a while; she might be better at her job. But I thought better of my suggestion, figuring that a girl like Cat really didn't need to improve her list of advantages, like turning everything into a weapon, being stunningly beautiful, and knowing a fair amount of fighting tactics.

Still, I couldn't help but snicker as I listened to that lot struggling in there. For heaven's sake, they sounded like a herd of elephants in high-heels when they tried to tiptoe, and as uproarious as a frat party on a college campus during New Year's Eve.

Ignoring Cat behind me, I raced into the den that was still dark from the one lamp that had been plugged being knocked over, which I guess was a result of the skirmish between Cat and I. I hesitated at the threshold of the den, my feet just barely scuffing the rug as I stared blindly into the inky darkness.

Okay, I'll admit it: I was kind of nervous about going into the living room, because I'm not a huge fan of darkness, especially when the entire room is pitch black, in the sense that you really cannot see _anything_. But, wanting to get this annoying macho business over with, and favoring my super awesome ninja-powers (which you should know I possess many of by now), I ran forward and rolled to a stop on the plush carpet.

Unfortunately, it seemed I still needed to sharpen up my techniques a bit, because I didn't quite reach my target, which was to subtly crouch behind the stuffed chair next to the door. Instead, I rolled to a stop in the worst place possible: centered right in front of the open doorway into the kitchen, at the _exact_ same time that someone in the kitchen flipped on the lights.

My luck is unfathomable.

Indulge me please: I'm about to use a cliche metaphor, so just bare with me for a second, okay? For that one moment I was analogous to a deer trapped in headlights- defenseless and frozen. Seven hunters- a.k.a. the burglars Retlaw, Forrest, Looney, Ant, and the rest of those goons- trained their headlights on me from the kitchen and pulled out their various weapons (i.e. a soccer trophy, a baseball bat, a a frying pan...) to do away with me.

 _Move, you idiot!_ My head seemed to scream at me. _Don't just sit there, MOVE!_ I guess I was pretty good at taking orders from my head, because I stood up so fast I almost got a head rush, and I stumbled away, uttering something stupid and incoherent like "I guhhh", which I think was Dumb-Percy talk for "Hey guys, I've decided I'm not gonna stick around to be shot to death by you, so instead, I'll just go..."

But as I backed up, I heard a gun click, and instantly I froze (because that's typically the _smart_ thing to do).

"Freeze."

I obeyed, but gasped, even stumbled back a little, and a feeling like a dozen volts of electricity shooting through a lightning rod struck my heart.

I knew that voice. I _knew_ that voice, better than I knew my own. It was a voice that had surrounded me my entire life, that had known me before I'd known myself. Had taken care of me as long as I'd lived. Had given me treats when I came home from school. Had sung me to sleep when I couldn't sleep because my stepfather and his friends were drinking and yelling too much. Had guarded me from the horrible things that currently resided my life for as long as possible. Had made me my favorite snack: blue chocolate chip cookies. Yep, there was no mistaking the melodic sound, the gentle but firm, the loving but protective tone.

That voice belonged to my mom.

"You take one more step, and I'll blow out your brains," said Sally Jackson.

 ***GASP* Oh no! What can this mean? Does Sally know that it's Percy? Will Sally kill Percy? Will Percy kill Sally? Will they kill each other? Will Cat return and save the day by pelting everyone with adorable kittens? And will Sally ever be able to make blue chocolate chip cookies again? Only time will tell...but you might as well take a stab at guessing in a review! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and the one before that, and the one before that...but seriously, please let me know what you thought with a review.**

 **Have a wonderful week!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	10. I Have Oprah Winfrey As A Mom

***tiptoes in cautiously* Hi guys...um, please don't kill me for being a few days late with my update. *gets a tomato in the face* Ok, I guess I deserved that. But thank you for being patient with me in my laziness. I was just so busy this past week, with school, family, and friends, but mainly because this past Thursday was Thanksgiving for those of us in America, and today and yesterday I'm decorating my house for Christmas (YAY!) That's my excuse. I hope it's sufficient enough! Now, please enjoy Chapter 10, and don't kill me!**

Sally Jackson.

Yeah, Sally Jackson, the only one I know by that name. As in _my mother_ Sally Jackson.

I was surprised, to say the least.

"Don't move!" she said, emphasizing her point (which, by the way, had already been made _very_ clear) by roughly jamming the _dangerous_ end of the gun into my back and making a low growl originate in her throat.

I flinched. I knew that growl. That growl was a Mama Bear growl: the kind that only came from my mom when she was protecting me from something. Or some _one._

But that didn't make any sense: how could she protect me if she the one she had a gun pointed at was me? And why would she be protecting me in the first place? According to her and the rest of the world, I was dead. In fact, I still didn't really know what I was.

But I had been thinking about it quite a bit over the past few hours. The nearest I could figure was that I had definitely died when that hellhound bit my head off. After all, it's pretty hard to recover from an injury like that. At the same time though, I don't think I'm completely dead either. I mean, if I'm actually dead, then shouldn't I be down in the Underworld by now? At first I kind of figured that maybe the whole death process was lagging a little bit, maybe because my death was such a big deal (not to toot my own horn, but I _was_ somewhat of a...celebrity, I guess you could say, in the demigod world). But at least 24 hours have gone by at this point, and I'm pretty convinced by now that it's not the system's fault that I'm dodging bullets and crazy burglars up here on Earth instead of lounging around in the Underworld with a cool drink and an umbrella straw. Nope, no bitterness here, whatsoever.

"Wait a second...who are you?" Retlaw stepped from the kitchen into the den, and I heard my mom let out a slight gasp as the others joined him. It was pretty creepy actually, the way that they all emerged from the shadows and lined up in a well thought-out sequence so that my mom could clearly see each of their faces. They were either really good at organizing themselves on the spot, or they were all in one of those boy bands from the '90s like the Backstreet Boys or 'N Sync (or *NSYNC or Nsync or however the Hades you spell it!). I expected any second for Retlaw's face to morph into that of Justin Timberlake's as he stepped forward and busted some "hip" dance moves.

"Who are _you_?" She sounded confident in her accusation, but for someone who had known her for so long and had been with her for practically every hardship, only I heard the stun in my mom's voice, the slight tremor. But her false confidence was enough to make Retlaw take a tiny step backward.

I smirked internally, satisfied with his reaction.

"Um...We're the...cable guys."

I rolled my eyes, and I could picture my mom wearing a similar expression, even though I couldn't see her.

" _Right_ ," she said sarcastically. "And I'm Oprah Winfrey. Since apparently I'm a talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist with a net worth of over 3 billion dollars and you're just a couple of 'cable guys', I recommend that you get out of my house before I set my security team on you." I got the sense that when she said "security team", that translated more closely to "police department".

At that thought, a realization suddenly shook me. Speaking of the police, _where were they_? My mom had called them a few hours ago, and they still weren't here. But it wasn't like we lived on the outskirts of the state or anything. And the New York Police Department are worth more than they're given credit for, so I didn't think it was an error on their part in the system/communication.

Something was definitely wrong here.

"Look, lady," said one of the other guys behind Retlaw, a guy with a big spider tattoo over his face, as he stepped forward and pushed past his comrades. "We can do this the hard way or the easy way. You put down the gun, go back into your bedroom, and come back out in 15 minutes. Anything you see, anything that's missing, you don't call the cops on us, no matter what, you hear? No matter what. That's the easy way. The hard way is if you decide not to put down that gun, and me and my friends kill you. So it's your choice: you can either walk away from this situation with your life intact and some of your stuff stolen, or you can not walk away at all, and _still_ get robbed. So what's it gonna be, lady?"

My mom opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it. Then closed it again.

"I...I don't understand," she said, and the tremor in her voice was much more evident this time. I wondered just how broken she must feel right now, to let herself seem this vulnerable. She must still be lost in that depressing state of mind where you just feel weak and lethargic all the time. My heart- whatever was left of it- physically ached for my mom, and I instantly hated these people.

Who did they think they were? Marching in here like they owned the place, demanding things of my mom. I wouldn't allow it. I knew my mom was tough, and that she could usually take care of herself. But even now, when armed with a gun (when and where did she get a gun _anyway_?), she was drastically outnumbered by these bozos.

The outcome looked plenty dark, that's for sure.

"Lady," Spider-man said, clenching his teeth, and I hated him even more for calling her 'lady', in a derogatory, disrespectful way. "How many times do I have to go over this? Put. Down. The. Gun. I get it, you wanna shoot me. But if you're gonna shoot me, then 8 other people are gonna be standing over your dead body in less than five seconds. Capeesh?"

The deafening silence that ensued was stale enough that I could practically sense the confusion in the air. My mom, who presumably still didn't recognize me from the back of my head, slowly lowered the gun from the back of my head. Then I felt her icy cold hand, shaky and frail, reach out and tentatively touch my hair in a single stroke. She gasped, and placed her hand on the top of my head, leaving it there in disbelief.

In that instant, she knew. I don't know how she figured it out, but the touch of my head under her hand must have been familiar enough that it brought her back to my level. She recognized me.

I didn't know whether to celebrate by jumping up in the air and clicking my heels together, or to fall in the ground and grieve for my mother, who would no doubt be haunted by the fact that her son had either come back from the dead, had a clone, or was some sort of ghost.

So, me being the genius that I am (which I'm sure we've established by now), I did nothing. And neither did my mom (genius genes must run in the family). She just stood there, her gun lowered and her hand on my head.

It got awkward fast.

Don't worry, you're not the only one who felt the tension. It was pretty obvious. So I was actually kinda thankful when the Spider Man broke the silence with a menacing voice.

"You got a question or somethin', lady?"

Now it was my turn to be confused. Clearly my mom was placing her hand on my head. I thought that was pretty obvious. I mean, it's kind of hard to miss that.

And it wasn't like I had turned on my invisibility powers or anything. At this point, I figured I'd pretty much mastered that skill, although I still didn't exactly understand it. But still, I'd managed to somehow turn it on when the burglars were all together in the foyer downstairs, when the Cat, Alicia, and Forrest were conferring on their raid in the hallway outside; and when my mom was being threatened by Cat in the den.

Suddenly, a realization dawned on me. All of the pieces of the puzzle came together in my mind, and I was able to see the entire picture.

And it all clicked.

I wasn't able to control my invisibility powers. I'd never been able to, and I wasn't able to now. It was never up to me, only this weird force that had kept me half-dead, half-alive. As far as humans were concerned, I was completely invisible.

But I thought of how Cat had easily been able to see me when we fought in the kitchen, and how she had had no trouble in wrestling with me. Neither had Alicia- the Bianca lookalike who had exploded into gold dust when I stabbed her with Riptide. Clearly she had been a monster of some sort. But what about my mom?

I peered at her over my shoulder now, and how she was the only one in the room who was able to see me now (Cat was still presumably crouching somewhere in my bedroom). I thought about how she had _always_ been the only human when I was growing up to be able to see the weird stuff associated with the world of the Greek gods. But that was because she had the Sight, and could see through the Mist. And the nearest I could figure was that during the fight between me and Cat, when my mom had stood there in shock when I sntached the bullet out of the air, was that she had been so out of it from my death that she had thought she was going crazy and seeing things, and the familiar touch of my head under her head had brought her back to normal.

So...I supposed that meant that whatever was keeping me invisible now was the Mist. Although, the Mist was meant to shield weird things in the Olympian world from the eyes of mortals, so that definitely confirmed that I was some type of ghost-thing now. Now to narrow down who the other people were. People that could see me as a ghost via the Mist: Alicia- a monster. Check. Sally- a person who had always had the Sight. Cat- a crazy nut job. Not check.

I figured that whoever- or whatever- Cat was, she was either a mortal with the Sight (not unlikely: I knew a few, like my mom and Rachel Elizabeth Dare), or a monster (also not unlikely, considering her fiery temper and her skills to use a pair of boots as a weapon).

Still, neither of those categories seemed to fit quite right. There was something else about her. Something familiar, something relatable. And as I watched her peek from around the corner in the hallway, her icy blue orbs wide and curious, the wave of realization hit me like a tsunami. The truth was more startling than my previous thoughts. This changed everything.

Cat was a demigod.

 ***falls over dead in shock* Whaaaat?! Cat's a demigod? What does this mean for her? For Percy? For the future of mankind? Anyone else hungry for pizza? I am, so I'm gonna go eat now. I sincerely hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thank you for being patient with me and reading it even after I was a few days late. Please review, favorite, follow, and vote! Thank you!**

 **Have a wonderful week!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	11. I Get A Serious Case Of Athlete's Foot

**Hello everyone! How are you? I'm doin' just dandy, thanks for asking. Special shout-outs this chapter go to** MagicWriterK **for being such an incredible reviewer (seriously, you went through all 10 chapters in a couple of hours, and left really nice, detailed reviews too!) and** drakonhuntas **for being such an [insert Apollo's favorite word: Awesome] friend! Haha inside jokes rock. Thank you to all reviewers, favoriters, followers, and voters, last chapter; please enjoy Chapter 11 of "The Death Of Me"!**

Cat was a demigod.

 _A flippin' demigod._

It didn't seem possible. I mean, this was Cat we're talking about. The same girl who ran around, scantily clad in a catsuit. We demigods usually wore something more practical, like a simple T-shirt and pants. Whereas she acted like everything was some sort of joke or pun, demigods wouldn't have that kind of mindset: they'd be scared out of their mind 100% of the time. And first of all, Cat didn't seem to be familiar with the Olympian world, since she didn't seem to understand that when I stabbed Alicia, I didn't murder her. A demigod would have taken one look at the flurry of gold dust and known that Alicia was some sort of monster. Also, Cat traveled with a group, who I took one look at and knew that they couldn't possibly be anything other than human. Demigods tended to be more of the lone-type, especially since we were frequently on the run from someone or some _thing_. Lastly, one of Cat's weapons was a cheese grater. And, well, last I checked, we demigods tended to use weapons that aired less on the cheese grater side and more on the sword/bow/knife side. (I mean, c'mon, a cheese grater? Really?) No, the mere thought of Cat being a demigod was unbelievable.

But, at the same time, the thought was totally believable. First of all, she was able to successfully use a freakin' _cheese grater_ as a dangerous weapon, and as far as I was concerned, that took some serious skill. Plus, she had the fit shape and battle tactic know-how that many demigods came pre-packaged with. Not to mention the fact that she could see through the Mist. If anything, that sealed the deal.

Even now, as I spied her curved form rounding the corner of the hallway and coming to a halt in the shadows, hidden from view of all but me, I could practically imagine her trading her threads by switching out of her jet black catsuit and opting for an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. Somehow, I knew she truly was a demigod.

But that didn't explain how she got here. What all had happened to this 17-year-old demigod so that she would end up in this situation? What was she left with now? A gang of burglars. Exotic and outlandish weapons. A friend who was a monster. No family. And unfathomable powers that I bet she had never imagined herself possessing.

"Hey lady..."

The same voice that had been rolling for the past few minutes suddenly caught my attention, for now apparent reason other than my train of thought had decided to pause and take a pit stop here. The speaker, who was the scary man with the spider tattooed across his face, wheezed out another command.

"Look, we've been standing here for the past few minutes, and you still haven't dropped the gun. If you don't drop the gun in the next five seconds..." He paused his sentence long enough to crack his knuckles menacingly, taking a threatening step forward, and my mother stiffened behind me, where she had moved to stand, although clearly no one but my mother and Cat would know that. "Well then, you're gonna wish that you had died along with your son."

If I thought it was possible to reach the limit of how stiff your body can physically become, well then my mom exceeded that stature about 15 stiffnesses ago. (Whatever that means.)

As if he sensed that this was too far, even for their group of thugs, Retlaw stepped forward and placed a hand on Spider Man's chest to block him. "Lay off a little, will you, Ant?"

 _Ah...so_ that's _his name_ , I thought as "Ant" took a reluctant step backwards under Retlaw's intense, no-nonsense gaze. I guess I had underestimated the stupidity of certain individuals in this group of thugs. I mean, for a guy with a name like "Ant", which is already bad enough by itself, wouldn't it be better to get an _ant_ tattoo, instead of a spider? Or, assuming Ant is just the guy's nickname, wouldn't it just be easier to go by "Spider" instead? It might not even sound as ridiculous (nah, it'd probably be just as bad). Still, a small glimmer of hope that maybe- just maybe- since these guys weren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, they would let us both off a little easy. Or, technically, I guess just my mom, since they couldn't exactly see me.

Stepping forward suddenly, a girl with a bob haircut- Forrest, her name was- clicked her tongue in a neurotic tic, and said, "Sorry. Usually he's not like that." Why did I get the feeling that she was lying through her teeth?

"Where's that girl?" My mom interrupted suddenly, cutting everyone in the room, I think, by obvious surprise. "That girl that was here earlier. She had red hair. Where is she?"

Retlaw practically leaped forward, he looked so eager. "What? You've seen her? When was the last time you saw her? Where was she? Was she here?"

Again, everyone was taken aback at this outburst, especially Cat. I snuck a peek at her, standing incognito over in the corner. Her blue eyes were wide with shock, her mouth open in an "O" shape.

I looked at my mom, and saw her sporting a similar expression. Clearly she had not expected a reaction like that. And clearly she was putting two and two together (I could practically see the gears turning in her head) that these people had come into the apartment to look for Cat, not for her. Well, that was the original purpose.

Now they were here for my mom.

"Okay, look, I've got a proposition for you," Forrest said, ignoring my mom and Retlaw completely. She placed her hands behind her back, as if trying to seem relaxed, but her green eyes were on hyperdrive. "You can either call the police now and tell them that everything was just a big mistake, and then get the hell out of here." She paused unexpectedly, as if drawing out the tension as long as possible.

 _I sense an "or" somewhere in there_ , I thought to myself.

"Or...?" My mom prompted without looking at me. Hey, what can I say? Great minds think alike, right?

" _Or_ ," said Forrest, shifting her weight to one side and crossing her arms. "We can tie you to a chair we a bomb underneath it after we're done looting this place." Then she repeated the phrase that I'd heard Ant using earlier, like the gang's motto or something: "What's it gonna be? We're going to rob your building, either way. Are you gonna leave, owning slightly less than you did before, but get off scot-free? Or are you seriously stupid enough to let your own stubbornness kill you and everyone else in this building?"

Having come to the end of her little tirade, her attitude seemed to deflate, and she spread her hands diplomatically, almost apologetically, as if that was the best she could do. "It's your choice."

My mom seemed too stunned for words, which, I'll admit, came as a bit of a shock to me. I mean, this is my mom, _the_ Sally Jackson, who was always prepared for anything. But I'd always felt that a little bit of that invincible, can-do attitude came from the simple fact that she was a mom, a mom with a job, and that job happened to be protecting me, her kid, at all costs. So I think that once I was killed, all the fight went out of her, like this entire time she'd been operating on this helium strength that came from a balloon, and over time, that balloon had swelled up more and more, getting more powerful. But, as powerful as it was, it didn't take much to pop it, and when it did pop, it deflated beyond repair. An identical wilted, defeated look sat on my mom's face, and it worried me.

Yet, this was still Sally Jackson. That fact hadn't changed. And behind that hopeless expression on my mom's face, I could see a glimmer of light, a spark of fire in those pale blue eyes. My mom hadn't given up hope yet, so that meant that I shouldn't either.

"Well, woman, come on! What's it gonna be?" Ant roared, his face wrinkled in what was obviously an insane rage.

Fortunately, or, unfortunately, depending on how you see it, my mom wasn't forced to answer the question, since something else distracted the attention of Crazy Ant. A shiny gold object, glinting sharply in the dim lighted setting of the living room. Whether it was because of my new, weird ghosty powers, I traced the image with startling speed. It was a trophy, the same one that I had spotted clutched in a gang member's hand as they first entered the building.

I watched as it hurtled towards my mom with a frightening accuracy. I watched, and I knew as I watched it that it would hit her squarely in the chest, and that it would hurt horribly. I watched as the trophy found its home in my chest instead of my mom's.

A gasp fell from my mom's pink lips as a sturdy thud resonated around the room, a sound that, presumably, was only heard by the ears of my mother, Cat, and myself. I looked at it incredulously. Yep, it was definitely deeply embedded in my chest. Yet it didn't hurt one bit.

 _Huh_.

With a slight wonder, I pulled the trophy slowly from my chest, and examined it. It appeared to be a gymnastics trophy, the engraved label reading "Regional Championships: 2005". There was no name included, no telling where it came from. A bronze statue of a girl- a gymnast- was balanced upside-down on the trophy, as if the female figure was poised in a permanent handstand. I found that the pointed portion that had found home in my chest was the gymnast's foot sticking into the air.

 _Man,_ I thought to myself. _I've certainly got one serious case of athlete's foot._

Oddly enough, although the foot had impaled me squarely in the chest and had gone pretty deep, there was no blood on the trophy. Not one drop. So I just dropped it and let it fall to the floor with a loud clatter.

Looking around, I noticed that the herd of burglars by the kitchen were staring at the trophy with the starkest astonishment I've ever seen. Really, it was quite spectacular. But, I'm not exactly one who likes to wait idly by, so, grabbing my mother's hand next to mine, I clutched it tightly with my right hand as I surged forward, tugging her with me. We ran past the burglars, who were transfixed by whatever it is they'd just seen- or thought they'd seen, at least. I had no idea what the Mist showed them, but I certainly didn't have time to sit around and find out over tea. With my mother's hand in my right one, I raced past Cat, and, on an impulse that I find myself regretting quite a bit, I clasped her hand in my left hand and brought her with us. Then we did something that I frequently find myself being quite adept at:

We ran.

 **Whoop whoop! Another chapter completed. Yay! Thank you to everyone for reading this far. Pretty please review, favorite, follow, and vote (poll is on my profile)! But most importantly, please enjoy the rest of your day, and the rest of your week.**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	12. I Know How To Use Shoes As A Weapon Too!

**Hi guys! I'm baaaaaack! I hope that when you saw an e-mail saying "Chapter: The Death Of Me Ch12 by Princess Andromeda II" that you didn't groan and blow a raspberry at your laptop screen... I am SO sorry that it's been so long. As those who I've been PMing with know, school has been so crazy these past few weeks, what with the holidays, and then adjusting with going back for the 2nd semester...well, you all know how that goes. Thank you all so much for your patience, and for you amazing support while I was gone (shout-outs are at the bottom of the page today). But as a sort of apology, I have written the longest chapter for this story so far, and it's basically the length of two normal chapters. So I hope you enjoy! Here ya go:**

We ran.

We burst out of the door, practically slid down the banister, nearly kicked down the front door of the complex, and pretty much hopped the front gate, (and trust me, it's not an easy task for 3 people to hurtle over a 3-foot fence while holding hands). Leaping over the gate and trying our best to avoid crashing into the friendly neighborhood mailman (we failed), our feet hit the pavement in a rapid rhythm of slapping soles on the sidewalk. In less than a minute we were halfway down the street and away from the apartment filled with crazy psycho burglars.

I swear, we got out of there faster than Grover on his way to the lunch line in cafeteria on enchilada day at school.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Cat said suddenly. She began to try to pull away, but I kept going, her hand still clutched in mine, and my mother's on my right side. "Hey, slow down," she demanded, her tug becoming stronger, but in an inverse relationship, I just increased my grip.

"STOP," she yelled, and, I'll admit, it freaked me out enough to actually stop.

"What?" I asked impatiently. "They could be right around the corner. We need to keep going..." I tried to reach for her hand, but she yanked it away before I could get a strong hold. My mom, also seemingly unwilling to be attached to me, dropped my hand and took a tiny step back.

 _What is with everyone today?_ I wondered. _I mean, I know I'm dead, but does that make you smell bad or something? Did I put on any deodorant the day I died?_ I resisted the urge to lift my arm up and smell my pits cuz, c'mon, that's pretty nasty, and I didn't really think it would win me any points with the two females in my company.

"Okay, what is it?" I said, hoping the annoyance in my voice came through as I placed my hands on my hips. (Do _not_ call me 'Persassy'.) "We gotta keep going."

"Yeah,," said Cat, the annoyance in her voice _way_ more overpowering than mine. "But _where_ are we going?"

"I- I don't know."

"You don't _know_?!" she cried, her shrill voice peaking into a high shriek.

"Look, I-"

"No, _you_ look," she fumed, her hands on her hips as she stormed in front of me, blocking my path. "I am tired of running. My feet hurt. These are brand new shoes, and now they're ruined." Whether to prove a point or because her feet genuinely hurt (which I wouldn't blame her for; those heels looked _painful_ ), she threw her shoes on the ground impatiently and stomped her foot in protests. I couldn't help but be reminded of a 5-year old throwing a temper tantrum, and I suddenly realized how much of a brat Cat was. _Thank goodness for people like Annabeth_ , I thought with a bittersweet sting in my heart.

I stared at her incredulously. "Are you serious?" I asked her. She just blinked in response. "I'm trying to get us away from some psycho killers, and you're complaining about _shoes_?!"

"But we're just running. We're not going anywhere. So what's the point?" She sighed. "Look, I get that you want to get away from the people that just tried to kill you and your mom," she said, gesturing to my mom with a sort of presumed knowledge, "if it's even possible for you to die at this point."

I shrugged, hoping that she wouldn't mistake that for nonchalance or indifference. "To be honest, I don't know if I can die either. I mean, I _know_ I died. That hellhound completely took off my head. My mom saw it happen, didn't you, Mom?" I asked, turning to face my mom for support.

She looked a little green, as though she were seasick on a sinking ship, bound on a voyage that she hadn't signed up for.

"Percy...If you don't mind, I'd rather not think about that right now," she moaned, letting her upright posture relax into a broken stance. Her shoulders slumped, and her arms hung limply at her sides like a sloth's.

We had come to a little park area, one that recognized easily. I used to skateboard here with my friends when we were younger, or I would come here with my mom and we would feed the ducks while we walked around the little pond that was placed at one end of the park. It was no Central Park, but it was close to our house, and had always felt like a safe environment; as I glanced around, I was relieved to see that there were still little boys coming here to skateboard with their friends to hang out or feed the ducks with their mom. Except for a few rickety, old benches that had been replaced by newer, much safer ones that _didn't_ give you splinters, the place sure hadn't changed much.

I watched my mom with a great amount of concern, which I'm sure was pretty readable by the frown on my face, as she slowly sank down onto one of the new benches that dotted the winding, paved sidewalk that weaved throughout the park's green areas. I was about to ask her if she was alright, but something else caught my eye first.

I turned towards the back of the bench on which my mom sat; behind it was a looming fountain, standing tall with pride; circular and at least 20 feet in diameter, it was arguably the jewel of the park. The marble gleamed in the sunlight while sparkling water poured out from the crown and spilled over into the gradually-larger and more elaborate troths, before emptying out into the base of the structure, where children and their parents splashed around in the cool, refreshing water, which was a breath of relief from the scorching afternoon sun. It really was a beautiful sight, but that wasn't what had caught my attention.

Watching the writhing movements of the soft waves, I strode past my mother - whose tears were beginning to dry, or so it seemed - and Cat, who stood in my way, hands on her hips. When I brushed past her, she turned with me, watching where I went.

"What are you doing?" she asked incredulously as I kneeled at the edge of the water, body bent over the rim of the fountain, my gaze fixated on the surface. "Come on, get up. We've gotta go."

I didn't get up. Just stared at the now-calm surface. _Odd_ , I thought. I had been certain I'd heard something... but never mind.

Cat, oblivious to my confusion, tried again: "We've been here long enough. Ant and the rest of those crazy idiots could be catching up to us at any minute."

That caught my attention. I looked up, surprised, and asked, "What do you mean? We ran 8 whole blocks! Are they seriously going to chase after us?"

She shook her head, though not as an answer to my question. "You underestimate them. They're so damn stubborn! I've been we these guys for quite a while now, and I know that they won't forfeit someone like you."

 _Someone like me?_ I wondered, but didn't say. I thought I heard a noise like a splash, mixed with the tinkling sound of wind chimes, but I ignored it. "It just seems like a lot of trouble to me, is all."

"A lot of trouble?!" She exclaimed dubiously. "Don't bet on it. They've seen what you can do, and powers like that..."

"Powers? But I can't control them!" There was that splashing sound again.

"Doesn't matter," she shrugged, as if this was the least of her concerns right now. "You seem powerful, and that's all they care about. They don't have to understand it. I don't even understand it. Hell, I doubt that _you_ even understand it!"

Another splashing sound. I glanced imperceptibly behind Cat, looking over her shoulder, but didn't see anything.

Feigning casualness, I shrugged after her suspended pause, her hands hovering in the air after getting worked up. _Splash_. But she slowly lowered them, almost suspiciously, her eyes narrowed as she gazed at me warily.

"Do you know what you are?" _What_ you are, not _who_ you are, I noticed. And, to be honest, it stung a little, like a harsh slap across the face that leaves a red mark after. But I tried to erase all signs of such emotions and replace it with impassiveness, as I rebounded:

"Do _you_ know what _you_ are?"

 _Splash_.

She gave me a strange look, and her mouth opened in an "O" shape to respond, presumably, but her mouth clamped shut when the noise like an enormous tidal wave sounded behind her, and in my line of sight. All I saw was a flash of blue before I was being pinned to the ground by a bulky figure with incredible strength. My arms, my legs, my entire body was trapped in a matter of seconds, though in my defense, I was caught totally off guard.

"The king is calling you."

I was stunned: those were the exact same words that Bianca - er, Alicia - had said to me, before I'd discovered she was an empousa and exploded into gold dust. Those five little words... _what did they mean?_ It was traumatizing, and I was stunned into stillness.

"Hey!" I heard distantly, as the great force was momentarily removed from my body, rolling to the side. I looked up - I hadn't realized my eyes were squeezed shut, possibly from preparing to die, which is kind of a wimpy move, now that I think about it. Out of the inappropriate embarrassment of my reaction, I saw my _mom_ dragging the thing off of me, across the pavement, as it kicked and thrashed. I was able to get a better look at it now that it wasn't, y'know, _attacking_ me.

It's body was huge - probably around the height of a 6-foot man, from what I could see. Upon further inspection, I could tell that it had everything a normal person had: arms, legs, torso, stomach, feet, hands, head, and a certain appendage that helped me recognize that "it" was actually a "he". It - excuse me, _he_ \- seemed to be rather toned and muscular, though it was somewhat difficult to judge, because his skin was actually translucent, with a blue tint to it. It took me a second to realize that the creature was actually made up of water, with little bubbles floating around inside of it and everything.

I'm not sure if those bubbles were just for show or if they gave him some type of weird energy boost, but either way, he was definitely making my mom work up quite a sweat. He was kicking and screaming, a sort of gurgly sound, like someone being strangled underwater or drowning, which was so ironic I nearly laughed, had it not been for what he kept saying over and over again.

"The king is calling you. The king is calling you. The king is calling you. The king is calling you. The king is calling you."

"Percy!" My mom cried, beads of sweat beginning to form on her forehead as she struggled to maintain her tight headlock she held on the creature. "A little help here?!"

"Oh..yeah!" I jolted, being snapped out of my stupor as suddenly as if someone had held a bullhorn to my ear with their finger held down. I looked around for Cat to help me, but she was nowhere to be found; the only thing that was left of her was her pair of new high heels, still lying on the ground in an exhausted heap from where she'd thrown them earlier. It appeared that even Cat's stilettos were braver than her.

"Coward," I mumbled to myself bitterly. Then, jumping to attention, I began to race towards my mom, simultaneously reaching for my trusty ol' sword, Riptide.

Only problem was, Riptide wasn't there.

I searched my pockets frantically, digging my hands as far into the fabric as was possible, and when I turned my pockets inside-out, I came up empty-handed.

" _Di immortales_ ," I muttered under my breath. I guess clothes could tide over into the afterlife, but weapons couldn't. But then I remembered that at the time of that little unfortunate incident where I got my head gnawed off, my weapon had been thrown out of my hand, and had landed somewhere beside me just seconds before the whole decapitation thing happened. And though Chiron had always told me that the sword would reappear in my pocket (as a pen, of course), apparently that rule didn't apply to ghost-hood. For a moment, I briefly considered going back to the apartment building to see if it was still there.

But that absurd thought was quickly dashed from my mind as a terrified shriek pulled me out of my ghostly thoughts and into the real world with real people. And weird bubble creatures. One of which had apparently escaped from my mom's vice-like grip and turned the tables on her; Mr. Bubbles now held my mom up in the air by one hand, his liquidated hand clenched tightly around her throat. He kept muttering that same phrase over and over again, "The king is calling you." It appeared that they had moved to the other side of the park, and were maybe a soccer-field away. From this distance, his features shifted too much for me to make out his expression clearly, but my mom's face was more defined, and the pained look on her purpling face was perfectly clear.

" _Percy_ ," she managed in a croaky voice. I felt like my heart was being boiled with poison as I watched the creature squeeze my mom's throat even tighter, and she gave a little gasp.

That was the last straw. Or I guess it was, because the stuff that came after that, I have a little bit of trouble remembering what happened after that, because I think my vision went a little red. (What can I say? I'm a mama's boy.) All I know is that one minute, I was standing alone by that bench and fountain, watching my mom get choked, and the next, I'm pounding on Mr. Bubbles as hard as I can. I vaguely recall one of Cat's shoes being used as a weapon at one point.

Unfortunately, it seemed that our friend Mr. Bubbles wasn't daunted by high heels, as he kept his tight grip on mom while managing to avoid my fistful advances with ease, casually allowing his watered limbs to shift however was necessary to dodge a punch. This only made me madder, and I punched even harder, but he dodged even faster. It was very frustrating, especially since he kept saying "The king is calling you," while I was trying to kill him. Very annoying, and rude, in my opinion.

"Percy," my mom choked out, a bit of blood forcing its way out of her throat and mixing with Mr. Bubbles's stream as it landed on his wrist and was absorbed into the water where it dissolved like sugar. "Use...your... _powers_."

"I can't!" I cried haplessly, narrowly avoiding a swinging punch that the creature had thrown. It seemed he had moved on to offense now. "I haven't learned to use my ghost abilities yet!"

"Not..those..." she sputtered.

And then it clicked. I was so _stupid_. (I've said it often enough at this point for you to realize how much I mean that.) I stopped throwing punches at Mr. Bubbles and avoiding his, and instead, I stood very still, my eyes closed in a relaxed manner. I forced myself to be calm and not think about my mom choking to death, and concentrated on the trickling sound of the fountain from yards away. My eyes suddenly shot open, revealing their sea-green color, and I glared at the creature as I stared at his skin and watched it dissolve before my eyes.

The creature let a guttural sound escape from the back of his throat, a noise like a dying dolphin or something, as he released my mom and dropped her to the ground, where she lay, still, in a crumpled heap. As I watched, the thin layer of water that coated the dark muscles on the inside evaporated, floating up into the sky to join the sun, and leaving the figure that remained to gasp under the intense heat and lack of H2O. I could now tell that the creature looked like a human, with dark skin that evenly spanned his bare body (I tried not to be embarrassed about the fact that he was completely naked). As a matter of fact, the creature didn't just look like a human; he _was_ a human, I realized it when he looked up at me with those compltely human brown eyes. A human that I actually...recognized. A human that should have been dead.

Charles Beckendorf.

"Beckendorf," I gasped, breathless, as I knelt down beside him where he lay on the ground. He was shivering, despite the fact that it was a scorching hot summer day. His eyes were closed, though they fluttered open randomly, like he was having a nightmare of some sort. But when I spoke his name, his eyes shot open, revealing the warm chocolate brown color there.

"Percy?" he wondered aloud, his eyes holding such fear and terror in them, it made my heart ache.

"Yeah, it's me, buddy. It's me."

He didn't seem to hear me, or make any not that he'd heard what I said, though I saw the tension in his shoulders relax ever so slightly. I gripped a hand that lay at his side, and was surprised to find how cold it felt, not at all how a warm body should be.

"Percy...you have to go to him," he wheezed, a cough escaping his lips.

"Go to who, Beckendorf?"

Again, he didn't seem to register my question, only hacked once more. "He's coming for you, Percy. He won't stop until he's found you. He's coming back. He's coming for you. He's coming for you all. Run, Percy, run!" He was nearly shouting, and his dark skin had taken on a purplish hue; Percy didn't know what to say, he just sat there, dumbfounded and gaping.

"Percy," Beckendorf said, his tone more like his calm and gentle old self. "Go to her."

"To who?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.

"Annabeth," his friend gasped. "Go to Annabeth. Protect her, Percy. Love is..." He exhaled with a shakey breath, his lips leeking a dark fluid that looked suspiciously like blood, though much darker than usual.

"I know," Percy said, placing both of his hands on his friend's free hand, the other draped across his chest, resting right over his heart. His beating heart.

"Goodbye, Percy..." His friend trailed off, his brown eyes meeting sea-green ones for the last time.

"Goodbye, Beckendorf."

And then he was gone.

 **Well, there you have it. I'm sorry if that was a little depressing, but hey, you shouldn't have read a fanfic where Percy dies straight off the bat. Still, I'm sorry if you're sad, but I PROMISE that next chapter, there will be a major Percabeth reunion! And if you are sad, well then I think that you'll be cheered up by dropping a review for your old pal, PA2 (btw, that's a lame nickname that I swear to never use again as long as you review). ; )**

 **Have a great day, everyone!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**

 **For reviewing, thank you** OGkush-OGskywalker, MagicWriterK, Ayano's Theory of Relativity, Bolle Accidentali, pheonixfire2004, Crazy Fangirl No. 1, Brittany Jackson, **and** Joeyvin the Dragon Master. **For following, thank you** Person 105, **and** Julie4Days **for following and favoriting.**


	13. I'm Good Enough To Be On A Soap Opera!

**Hello, gorgeous/handsome! Welcome. FYI it is currently raining where I am; yay! Thanks for returning for Part 13, and to all those who read/reviewed/followed/favorited last chapter: THANK YOU. Here is Chapter 13:**

"Percy."

My name. Someone said my name, but I barely heard whoever it was. I was too focused on Beckendorf and his still chest, his closed eyes, to register anything around me.

"Percy," the voice said, more insistent this time. I felt a gentle tug on my sleeve, the fabric all battered and ripped, and I looked up. It was my mom. "Percy," she implored, a hint of desperation creeping into her tone. "Please, we have to go, sweetie. Right now."

"But," I whispered, though there was nothing more to the phrase than that.

"Honey, I know how much pain you're in right now. Trust me, I get it. And as your mom, I wish nothing more than to be able to take all of that pain away from you. But I can't, and I know that you understand that all of this," she said with a wave at her hand, glancing down dejectedly at Beckendorf's body, "is part of life, whether it's the mortal world or a crazy world filled with gods and monsters and glowing weapons and goat men, it's the same. Death hurts, no matter what. And I hate it. But right now, we have to keep moving, or some other monster might track us down and kill us, and there won't be any chance of easing the pain, or of anything getting better for you ever again. Do you understand?"

When I didn't respond, which was a reaction caused both by grief from my friend's still-fresh death and the astounding speech she'd just made, she knelt down in front of me, gazing into my eyes, and put her hand on my shoulder. Though her hand was soft, I could feel through my ripped shirt the faint callouses that were there at her fingertips.

"Let's go," she murmured gently, so much love in the words that I felt my body stand upright and my legs begin to move through a force of their own. Although my mom was just a human, she had the capabilities of a charm-speaking child of Aphrodite without needing any godly blood in her veins.

"But where -" I cleared my throat, embarrassed at the _very_ manly squeak that appeared in my voice, interrupting me. "But where will we go?"

"I just called her," she said naturally, holding up her phone and shaking it slightly for emphasis. Unlike us demigods, who can't carry cell phones because it makes it that much easier to be tracked by monsters, my mom was a regular human, and she was perfectly able to own one. However, whether it was out of politeness for me not being able to have one or if it was just a mom-thing, she opted for an older model instead of the newest iPhone, Samsung, or Android. She decided to go with one of those clunky old phones that's as close to being a typewriter as it is to a phone, with nothing but an option to dial and the bulky keyboard buttons (letters and numbers _only_ ). A Blackberry. A _Blackberry_ , for cryin' out loud!

"You just called who?" I asked.

"I think you know."

"Yeah," I said with a sigh, "I do."

...

 _Knock knock_.

My mom and I were waiting outside of a lovely townhouse, a two-floored beauty that rose up before us, its impeccably-chosen gray color - considering who its residents were - a nice blend with the subdued dark green shutters.

I glanced next to me, to my mom. She was biting her fingernails absentmindedly, and I had to remind her not to chew her nails. She responded with a dismissive wave of her hand before going to work on her left hand's once-polished nails.

"Mom, you okay?" I still didn't quite understand why she was so nervous.

Her eyes darted towards me, and away. "I... I'm fine. What about you? You doing okay?" She rubbed my shoulder lovingly, and I mustered up a small smile.

"I'm fine, actually." And I was. I was fairly calm, surprisingly, and wasn't all that worried about seeing her again. I mean, it had only been a day or two since I'd seen her, so nothing could have changed all that much, right?

Wrong. When she opened the door, I felt like my world had been flipped upside down. Her clothes were uncharacteristically rumpled and wrinkled, in contrast to her normally clean-looking attire, and I noticed that she so golden and contained in delicate curls, looked about ready to take a vacation, the normally-golden locks a dirty blonde color, while the locks were matted against her sweaty-looking forehead. Even her startling grey eyes, which usually had that spark of intelligence in them that only the greatest of geniuses possess, had dimmed to a subdued hue, like a boring broth color.

But, I was pleased to see, her eyes lit up considerably when they set sight on me, and mine on hers. When our grey and sea green orbs met, I swear it was like magic, with sparks flying and everything. It was possibly the best romantic reunion we've ever had. We even said each other's names, all whisper-y and dramatic and stuff, though I swear on my own grave that was our raw reaction. (I secretly think that if I auditioned for the male lead on a soap opera, by now they would have no choice but to cast me for the role.)

"Annabeth."

"Percy," she whispered quietly with a short intake of breath, her gasp no less prominent than the now-illuminated eyes that were practically bulging out of her head.

I said nothing in response to that, and for a moment I was feeling kind of awkward, a feeling which made me feel even _more_ awkward, because Annabeth is my girlfriend and best friend, so we should never experience an uncomfortable moment like this again. She, however, seemed to be experiencing none of the awkwardness, as she just stared at me, before stating:

"I didn't believe Sally when she told me."

"Told you what, specifically?" I glanced behind me for some sort of explanation from my mom, but for whatever reason, she had disappeared, abandoning me on the front steps of the townhouse to explain this ridiculous story all by myself. _What is with people and running off without saying anything_? I wondered. First Cat, now my mom. I only hoped that my breath wasn't bad enough to run off Annabeth too after our beautiful reunion we'd just had. I still hadn't kissed her yet, I realized. I hadn't even hugged her, really, and I decided that needed to change very soon.

"That you weren't really dead."

I looked up at her in surprise, not from the words she'd spoken, but the way that she'd said them. So disbelieving and emotionally detached. I had expected plenty of emotions upon seeing my girlfriend, but, for whatever reason, call me crazy, indifference was not one of the many emotions I'd thought I would see in her.

"I know. It's pretty crazy,. I still don't completely understand it myself, though that's not such an uncommon thing with me, is it?"

I was again surprised by Annabeth's reaction to my words, though this time it was from the ghost of a smile that flashed across her face, disappearing as soon as it had appeared.

"But... How - ? When - ? I don't... I don't... oh!"

Her not-so intelligent words (which are by no means a judge of her excellent mind, a mind that could rival even the likes of Athena herself; maybe even _mine_!) were cut off as I pressed my lips to hers firmly. For that one moment, it was perfect. Everything was perfect.

Of course, that was the moment my mom chose to return.

"Oh, look at you two!" she cried joyfully, and she even did the mom-thing where she clasps her hands when she's really excited, and then she just places a hand over her heart and shakes her head when she's too happy to even say anything of great importance. "The finest couple on Earth, finally reunited!" I could practically hear her pulling out her figurative camera and snapping at least a dozen photos for our theoretical (and yet-to-exist) family scrapbook.

Go figure.

 **If you're reading the story right now, then hi! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please tell me what you thought with a review. Following and favoriting works too. Also voting on my profile's poll. But mainly reviewing.**

 **Have a great week!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	14. I Tell My Mom To Make Me Some Pie

**Hello, everyone! I hope your week was as fabulous as fabulous can be...(is that grammatically correct? Idk, unimportant detail...) Thank you to everyone who reviewed; seriously, I appreciate it so much. Special shout-out goes to** **ifoundalaskay** **for his awesome work on going through every chapter and reviewing so much in a short period of time (you are literally the best! :D ). Please, read, review, and enjoy!**

I could have stayed like that for hours, just me and Annabeth hugging it out, like in the good old days, when we would embrace in the middle of a raging battle, swords and shields and severed limbs flying around us, while we just stood there and didn't do a dam thing. (I'm only kidding, obviously.)

Still, something about the way she fit when she hugged me, her head on my shoulder, her arms wrapped around my torso, was so comforting that I truly felt like I could have fallen asleep right then and there.

Unfortunately, my mom, who had chosen the absolute worst moment to walk back to us, didn't seem to quite agree with my philosophy.

"Am I interrupting something?" she demanded, though there was a teasing tone in her voice and a bright twinkle in her eye that let me know she wasn't really serious. More than anything, she probably just wanted to get somewhere safe.

I played along, starring in the lead role of "the overdramatic teenage son", and I groaned. "Ugh, mom! You're embarrassing me in front of my girlfriend! Go away!"

In response, she just shook her head, rolled her eyes, and went back inside the house (we had a spare key to Annabeth's home in case of emergencies), her petite frame disappearing inside the door frame. As I watched her outline recede, I shouted after her teasingly, "And make me some pie while you're at it!"

I turned to Annabeth, eager to make her smile, but I got no such reaction out of her. Whether she thought my mom really _was_ serious, or she was just done with out little hug-session, I felt Annabeth drawing her arms from around my chest as she pulled away (much to my displeasure, I can assure you). She stared at the street in front of her house, her eyes all-knowing and a shimmery gray color - I wondered what she was thinking about - before turning to face me, all vulnerability gone from her eyes as she squared her shoulders and demanded:

"Okay, tell me what happened."

I sat down on the edge of the sidewalk in front of her house, my shoulders slumped, weighed down by the burden of all my morbid, heavy thoughts. "Are you sure you really want to know? A lot of crazy stuff has happened."

She plopped down on the curb next to me, the set of her shoulders mimicking mine, though there was a playful glint in her eyes. "'Crazy' is my middle name."

"No it's not," I insisted, faking indignance. "It's -"

"Uh-uh-uh, Percy," she interrupted, placing a finger over my mouth to shut me up. "You're the only one who knows my middle name. Don't make me regret telling you."

"Why don't you want anyone to know what it is?"

"Because, it's embarrassing, that's why."

"I like your middle name," I insisted.

" _Percy_ ," she said, a warning, no-nonsense tone creeping into her voice.

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you," I promised, my hands held up in surrender. I feigned innocence, but we both knew perfectly well that I was stalling. But, when you've been in a relationship with someone like Annabeth for as long as I have, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that she is the boss, not me, and that if you want to go to bed that night without having to worry about death threats or pianos hovering over your head while you sleep...yeah, you better do whatever she says.

So I did just that. I told her everything. Everything she wanted to know, and then some (except for the incident with the hellhound, and how it had bitten my head off. She was there for that, and no doubt the memory would cause some unwanted tears and grief to bubble back up to her tough exterior.) I told her about how after I had...died...I hadn't _felt_ like I was dead, and how I had, instead, stood there, staring at my own dead (considerably headless) body, while the hellhound munched away on my face, before it disappeared into thin air when Annabeth started attacking it. I told her how I had run away, then eventually come back to see my mom crying in our kitchen, and how I had gone downstairs and accidentally discovered that I was somewhat-able to pass through walls. How the burglars - Cat, Retlaw, and the others - had broken into our apartment building with their strange assortment of weapons, and had seemingly not seen me at all. How I had followed them to the top floor, and followed Cat when she broke into my apartment. How the two of us had fought, me flickering in and out of visibility until finally she had pulled a gun out, at the exact worst possible time, when my mom finally came out of her room. How I had literally jumped in front of my mom to save her and grabbed the bullet _mid_ -air, as she experienced the same strange occurance of being able to see me at times, and not being able to at other moments. How I had chased Cat into the back, where we'd fought again until I had sliced her friend Alicia - the Bianca look-alike - in half when she'd turned into an ugly old hag. How I had crept into the living room to find the band of burglars back again after they'd heard Alicia and Cat's cries for help, and how my mom had followed us, her gun pointed at my head, until she'd finally recognized me, and despite the ominous threats of the gangsters, I had made a mad dash out of the building with my mom and Cat, who I had just realized was a demigod. How, when we'd stopped in a park nearby, we had battled a water-like monster, which had been evaporated into Beckendorf, who quickly died. I told her how his last words as the watery being "The king is calling you", just like Alicia, or Bianca, or whoever the Hades she was. I explained how after all of that, after all of that mayhem and exhausting trial, my mom had led me (Cat had disappeared in the fight) out of the park and to Annabeth's townhouse.

"And the rest is history," I said to her, with a vindication that marked the end of the story. I licked my lips hastily; my mouth was dry from all that talking. I looked over at Annabeth, and almost chuckled at her expression: complete shock (by the way, if you know my girlfriend personally, you'll know that it is not a common sight to see the well-renowned Annabeth Chase at a loss for words).

"So?..." I prompted, nudging her gently. "What do you think?"

She gaped at me, her mouth hanging so low it looked like her jaw had come unhinged. I was certain that it was humanly impossible for a person's eyes to pop out of their head so much; after all, aren't cartoon characters the only ones who can do that?

"What do I _think_? I think this whole thing is completely crazy."

I couldn't help but smirk at her, as I said, "Well, you _did_ say your middle name was 'Crazy'."

The ghost of a smile graced her face, and she glanced over at me. "True." But then the smile disappeared, and was replaced with a look of concerned puzzlement. "But there's one thing I can't figure out."

"Just one?" I tried for another smile, but I got no results this time, so I just sighed, and asked"What's that?"

"This king business." She placed a finger on her chin absent mindedly. "What was it...'The king is coming'?"

"You mean 'the king is calling you'?"

"Yeah," she nodded, and stared at the ground. "I wonder what it means."

I started to open my mouth to reply (specifically to tell her that I had even less of an idea what it mean than she did), but before I could, she continued on, as if she was unaware of the conversation aspect of this little chit-chat. "And what about this girl? Cat?"

I gulped. "What do you mean?"

"You said you think she's a demigod?"

I nodded, somewhat warily. "Right. I'm certain of it. She could see me, or at least she could see me more towards the end."

"'Towards the end'? What do you mean, like she couldn't see you the whole time?"

"Yes. No. Maybe." I sighed, not sure how to answer the question. "I mean... right after I died, at the very beginning of all _this_ ," I waved my hand at the air around me for emphasis, "nobody could see me. I was standing there, staring at my body after I...died...and nobody noticed me. Then when I went back to my apartment, I punched the wall, and part of my hand went in; later, when Cat and I were fighting in the kitchen, she could see me some of the time, but other times she would say 'Where are you?' like she couldn't even see me. And right before me and my mom and her went to the park, the gang of burglars broke into the apartment, and even though my mom had her gun pointed at me, they only talked to her, not me, but Cat and my mom were the only two to notice me."

"What do you think that's all about?" She looked so earnest in her question that I figured I would just tell it to her straight.

"I think that it was kind of the side-effects of death wearing off, if there is such a thing. Like, right after I died, the 'force' of death or whatever was really strong, and maybe that force kind of wore off as it went along."

"Huh. That makes sense, I guess." She looked like she thought of something, because her eyebrows shot up really fast, like she'd seen a ghost. Haha. "But then why couldn't the burglars see you?"

"That's just it," I said, "I think that the force was some type of Mist, one that still protected me from the sight of mortals, and allowed me to be seen by demigods and humans with the Sight. But it's a special kind of Mist, like a Death Mist or something."

Annabeth's eyebrows shot up even further. "Really? Death Mist?" I shrugged. "I'm curious though. Where is she?"

"Where is who?"

"Cat. You said that she was with you in the park. She couldn't have just disappeared into thin air - well, I guess she could have - but that's beside the point, and highly unlikely. So, where is she?"

I shrugged noncommittally. "No clue. But I'll tell you what _I'm_ curious about. All of this business about people coming back from the dead. I mean, first me, then Bianca's twin, then Beckendorf... Any idea what's going on?"

She shook her head with a frown, and I almost pitied her, she seemed so frustrated with not knowing the answer, but then I quickly retracted that thought when I remembered how much Annabeth hated pity.

"No, but whatever it is, it can't be good." She sighed, and the sound was so forlorn and depressed that I couldn't help but put my around her, subconsciously doing the thing that I always tried to do for Annabeth: protect her.

"Probably not." She leaned into me, her head on my shoulder, as if she could tell that I was trying to take some of her pain away, and she was totally fine with it. "But, the good news is, we're together now, and we're going to _stay_ together this time. Nothing can separate us now."

"Yeah..." She let out another quiet sigh, and closed her eyes. I closed mine too. It was so peaceful, just the two of us sitting like this, wrapped in each other's arms, basking in the sunlight...

 _Ah..._

"Percy." Annabeth sat up so quickly from our embrace that it took me a minute to realize that I had actually fallen asleep. Right there. In broad daylight. On the side of the road. "Percy," she repeated, a hysterical sense of urgency creeping into her voice. "What does Cat look like?"

I thought about it. "Tall, reddish hair, blue eyes, kinda pale...Why?"

I saw her gulp as her eyes went wide at something behind me. "Because I think I found her," she whispered.

I looked over my shoulder, and nearly fell over again by the sight I saw.

Laying in the middle of the street, seemingly unconscious, was Cat, dead-center in a sickeningly large pool of dark blood. There were no tell-tale signs of life, no rising-and-falling chest, no twitching limbs; just completely still. And that wasn't all, either, for standing over Cat's body, also drenched in a substance that looked suspiciously like blood, was an ominous figure, dressed all in black.

I squinted at the figure, trying to make out the details of the face, and felt my heart stop when I recognized who it was.

" _Di immortales_ ," I heard Annabeth breathe, at the same time that I gasped:

"Oh my gods."

It was Luke Castellan.

 **WHAT?! Wow, crazy, right? An ending like that deserves a review, don't you think? Hahahahah- No, seriously though, please review. I'm hoping that we can get to 100 reviews by next chapter, because, c'mon, that would be pretty awesome, right? Anywaaaaay: that's all for now you guys; I'll see you next week at this same time. I hope you all have a wonderful week!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**

 **P.S.** ** _REVIEW!_** **(think about the big, fat juicy number 100...) Thank you. :)**


	15. I Use The Word Freakin A LOT

**Hi! Super sorry for the late update, but...life. Sorry, that's the best e/spanxplanation I've got. Thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, followed, and favorited last chapter. To everyone: please forgive me for the late update! Now read on, and enjoy, and go find a unicorn, and then tell me where you found that unicorn because dam it it's a unicorn and I want one!**

Luke Castellan.

Luke Freakin Castellan. A guy, for those of you who aren't familiar with my life before this, is supposed to be completely, absolutely, positively dead. But then again, so was I, and Bianca, and Beckendorf.

But this is different. This is Luke Freakin Castellan, the guy who almost took Annabeth from me, who was a liar and a traitor to Camp Half-Blood, who was a tool used to host Kronos in a mortal form, but who died honorably by his own sword in the end. So it did not make sense that the same college-aged guy could be standing a few yards away from me, his trademark scar slashed across his face. He made no movement to come closer, just stood as still as a boulder; the only sign that he was a living, breathing person and not some frighteningly-accurate statue was the way that his sandy blonde hair rustled in the light breeze, though even when a few locks fell across his eyes, he made no attempt to move the hair aside. He just kept on staring at me with his intense blue eyes, the pool of blood widening alarmingly quickly and staining the bottoms of his shoes as Cat slowly bled to death.

I won't lie: it was pretty dam creepy.

Gods above, I thought. Of all the freakin people in the entire freakin world, it had to be Luke Freakin Castellan.

"Luke," I heard Annabeth whisper, and when I turned to look at her, I could see that her gray eyes were open and wide like an owl's, an idea that was stuffed with all sorts of irony and jokes that I didn't have time to waste my energy on figuring out. Her face held so many emotions, the chief among them being the purest form of shock I had ever seen. I couldn't imagine that this was easy for her: seeing her old brother/boyfriend turn up all creepy after he'd been dead for, oh, just about two freakin years, and- You know what? I'm sorry. The whole "freakin" thing is really annoying, isn't it? I'm annoying myself, just by saying it so much. Sorry, I'll stop now.

Meeting Luke's intense gaze, my eyes scanned him up and down, sizing up the college-aged guy before me; he didn't look as if he'd aged since his death at all, as he still looked to be about college age. If anything, he looked a bit younger, with a sort of unnatural glow about him (not quite as bad as the sparkling vampires in Twilight), though I certainly wasn't going to compliment him on his complexion at a time like this. Maybe another time though... Never mind.

I began to walk towards him, but Annabeth stopped me with a firm hold on my shirt sleeve.

"What are you doing?" She hissed, her face incredulous. As if sensing that I was about to continue moving towards him anyway, she moved her hand to my shoulder, where she had a tighter grip, and another hand to grasp my forearm.

Dam, I thought, hoping my faint surprise at her strong grip didn't show on my face.

"Annabeth," I said softly, placing my hand over hers. "We both know he's not just going to stand there all day, as great as that would be."

"Please don't do this," she begged, tugging on my arm like a small child in a very uncharacteristically-Annabeth way. I figured it was the whole abrupt appearance of a not-quite-as-dead-as-we-thought Luke that was throwing her nerves off balance.

"Trust me, I don't want to," I admitted. "But I have to," I stated simply. It's part of the job of being a demigod, I guess: you find yourself getting into a lot of situations that you really wish you could have absolutely nothing to do with. And you have to get involved, or else a lot of people will get hurt, and it will be your fault. Basically: don't ever become demigods, kids.

"Percy," she said, her eyes begging me not to go. I was reminded of the similar way that she had pleaded with me not to go, to not go fight the hellhound, right before the monster had pinned me down and bitten my head clean off. Then I had died, and everybody had cried, and...basically, the day had not ended on a high note. Point in case, although I was seeing a lot of similarities in her words and her tone, I still hoped that today would not end in as much death as my 18th birthday had, especially for Annabeth or my mom.

"Go into the house, and stay there until I get back," I told her. I let go of Annabeth's hands, kissed her softly on the lips, and pulled away from her iron grip, which seemed to deflate pitifully as I walked away and stepped off the curb in front of her house.

"Luke!" I called, stomping forward in the street. I felt a bit like a cowboy in one of those old Western movies, where two guys meet at sundown on the only street in town to have a dual to the death.

But there was nothing glorious or cinematic about would be no heroic death, or guys falling from two-story buildings, or having the local sheriff ride in at the last second. This was it. Me and Luke. In the end, someone would not be walking away.

I prayed to the gods above that that "someone" wasn't me.

"Luke," I repeated, squaring my jaw and giving him what I sincerely hope was a fierce scowl, though it probably just made me look like I was constipated. "Long time, no see."

"Jackson," the son of Hermes spat out contemptuously, and I had to remind myself to not be impressed by his "bad-guy" look. Focus, Percy.

Instead, I just rolled my eyes, and said "Come on, let's get this over with."

Boy, when I said that, Luke really didn't waste any time; he hopped right to it as he sprung up and over Cat's limp form, doing a very impressive somersault in the air - seriously, it was a flip worthy of an Olympic gold medal - and landed right in front of me.

When he landed, I heard a strange sound, sort of like a mixture between the hollow clomp of a horse's hoof and a noise like when you hit a frying pan. But I ignored it, instead choosing to focus on the sword being thrust in the general direction of my stomach.

"Die!" Luke screamed in a cliche villain way, jabbing at me with a sickeningly long blade. It wasn't his old sword that he'd had before, the double-sided blade called Backbiter, but this one was still pretty threatening with its jagged edge that reminded me of shark's teeth.

I leaped to the side, just barely avoiding the jab, crying "Oh shi-" Well, I guess I'll let you figure that one out for yourself. Still, I thanked the gods above for the dodge as I reached to grab Riptide from my pocket...

...Which was right about the same time that I realized that my faithful sword was still missing, presumably back at my apartment, left there when the whole thing with the hellhound biting off my head occurred.

I mentally cursed, instead opting to mutter "Di immortales" while I turned and ran in the other direction.

Sure, call me a coward all you want to, but I dare you - I just dare you - to try standing still against a guy who has come back from the dead, glows a little, and also has wicked experience with a sword. Seriously, I dare you.

"Where are you going, Jackson?" I heard him taunt me, but I didn't slow down. I've seen the Back To The Future movies before, and I know as well as anybody not to give in just when someone calls you a chicken. That's just dumb.

"Nice try!" I called over my shoulder, still running the other way, though I had slowed slightly when I realized he wasn't pursuing me. "But I'm not that stupid."

He walked towards me slowly, swinging his sword back and forth, as if he was an old gentleman out on a leisurely stroll in the park with his cane. Yeah right.

"Come on, Luke. Cut this out" I called to him, a hint of begging in my tone. "Stop this! You can still be saved!"

Even from here, I could hear the low chuckle coming from him. "Maybe I can," he said, pausing his stroll to swing his sword back behind him and use the weapon as a pointer, "but she can't."

I peered around him, and let out a slight gasp of breath at the limp form of Cat on the ground. I had almost completely forgotten about her, as horrible as it sounds. The dark red pool surrounding her had grown alarmingly larger, much to my dismay. She certainly was losing a lot of blood...

That gave me an idea. A stupid idea, but an idea, all the same.

Praying to every god that I could think of for a situation like this, I ran back towards Luke, circling around in an arc towards him. Don't worry, I wasn't just going head-first into a situation like I normally do. Trust me, I had a plan. Sort of.

"Alright, Luke. You want me?" I tapped my chest, my hand thudding hollowly against me. "Come and get me."

"Oh really? What are you going to do? Scare me to death?" He chuckled, a low sound in the back of his throat. "In case you haven't noticed, Jackson, I've been to the Underworld before." He whipped out his sword with a flourish, brandishing it in front of him. "And I don't plan to go back any time soon."

"Oh yeah?" I asked, backed up to Cat now. I could feel the pool of blood soaking the bottoms of my shoes, and I desperately tried to focus on Luke, and not Cat - specifically her blood. "Well, I've been to Tartarus, and it's much worse. Trust me."

Luke was now only a few feet in front of me, and he was walking towards me slowly, with a predator-like quality about him. But I didn't move away or run; I just stood there, facing him off, and letting him approach me.

Patience, I reminded myself. Be patient.

"But," I continued, "I did learn a lot of things down there. How to drink fire, how to kill empousa..." An image from Tartarus popped into my brain, of me defeating the goddess Nyx using the acidic poison in Tartarus's arteries, and I focused on that idea. "...and how to control liquids besides water. For instance: blood."

With that, I raised both of my hands up, high above my head, and watched as the pool of blood under my feet lifted me up into the air at the exact same time that Luke surged forward and stabbed my stomach - or, at least, the area where my stomach would have been one second ago. I grinned as the fountain of dark red liquid carried me up and over him, like some sort of male, human-sized, slightly transparent, fairly bloody fairy. So, I guess, not really anything like a fairy at all.

When I looked down at the son of Hermes, the expression on his face was almost enough to make me lose my concentration. Almost.

"Nice trick, Jackson," he admitted, his teeth clenched tightly. An evil scowl overtook his face then, and I became slightly less certain of my plan. "Now why don't you come down here and fight like a real man?"

"No thanks," I said simply, as I pushed both my hands forward, towards Luke, causing blood to surge forward and hit him in the chest, knocking him off his feet and pinning him to the ground.

He propped himself up with both elbows, leaned to the side, and spit. I almost gagged when I saw the disgusting mixture that came out - seriously, I won't even describe it to you. When he heard me make a noise, he looked up at me and grinned toothily, red drops of blood dotting his teeth and dripping down the corners or his mouth. The way he looked, all pale and wane with blood in his mouth, you would've thought he was one of the vampires in Twilight. Hey! That's twice in the same chapter that I've criticized that fandom! I guess I should lay off, considering most people consider my story to be fictional too, and not an actual record of my life.

"Why not?" Luke said simply, acting as if he'd just invited me to tea. Then he grinned at me, that terrifying smile, and chided, "You're not chicken, are you, Jackson?"

 **Hi! So, I know that wasn't really much of a cliffhanger or anything, but that's just because I actually split this chapter up into two different chapters: Ch. 15 and Ch. 16. Otherwise, it would've been really long, like 8 pages and nearly 5,000 words, and I don't know about you, but I honestly hate reading unnecessarily long chapters. Plus, since I was two weeks late with my update, you can consider this me catching up! So read on to Ch. 16, and enjoy! Also, don't hesitate to leave a review down below. :) Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful day!**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	16. I Need My Cat, But Don't Ask Why

**Hello! Ok, so I've got some news; don't worry, it's nothing major. I'm just going to be taking a small break from this story, to take time to write other things and also to work out my story outline better. It will be a maximum of 4 months. So if I haven't updated by the time that June 18 rolls around, you have my permission to come and kick my a$$. :) But seriously, I promise you that this break will not be permanent or anything. I would even swear it on my grandma's grave (if either of my grandmothers were dead...) Alright, enough talking, more...reading, I guess? Whatever. ENJOY! ... (please) ...**

"You're not chicken, are you, Jackson?"

Okay. Pause for one second.

You remember how earlier, I said I never gave in when someone called me a chicken? Well, that was mostly true. Mostly. But when a tough dude like Luke questions your macho-ness twice in a span of only a few minutes, you gotta do everything you can to salvage your reputation. And I mean _everything_.

"Fine," I muttered as I swooped down out of the sky, praying to the gods above that I looked like some type of scary pterodactyl and not like the fairy image I was still picturing in my head. Seriously, I need to move on from that.

Jumping somewhat-regally from my chariot of blood (yeah, I know how disturbing that sounds), I landed in front of him, channeling the remainder of the dark red liquid to me. With a twirl of my index finger, the blood encircled Luke, lifting him off of the ground before me and encasing him in a whirlwind. I guess you could say that it was one heck of a bloody tornado.

I know what you're thinking. (Or at least, what _some_ of you are thinking. Others...I worry about you guys.) You few _sane_ people are probably thinking, _Ew, Percy, gross! *squeal* Blood is so nasty! Why would you do that?!_ Well, trust me, it was as nasty as it sounds. I guess I wasn't concentrating on keeping it off of me enough, because there was blood all over my face and my clothes and in my hair and - yeah, it was really gross. But, weigh the options: either stand there and be skewered, suffering yet another painful death in the same week, or follow my incredibly brilliant plan where I escape, figure out how to not be a ghost-type-thing, and survive to a ripe old age of 19, by which time I'll probably die by some other stupid thing. _Anyway:_

"Alright, you've got me" the son of Hermes admitted, though there was no sign of defeat or remorse on his face. "I'm done for. Do what you want with me."

I shook my head, picturing the look of terror and distance on Annabeth's face when I had almost destroyed Nyx with the Tartarus poison, that look as if she had seen a stranger, and one that she didn't like. That look had haunted me ever since, I didn't want to see it again after I killed her old crush, friend, brother...

"No," I said. "That's not who I am. I don't want to kill you."

He glanced up at me, expressionless. "And I don't want to kill you either."

I balked at that. Surely, he had to be joking. "What? Yeah, you do!"

"No I don't."

" _Yeah_ ," I insisted, my eyes probably wider than a bushbaby, "you do!"

"No I don't," he said irritably with a roll of his eyes. "Do you need me to say it one more time?"

I ignored that, saying, "Then what the Hades was that all about?" I gestured to the scene behind me, the street we were on stained by dark red blood.

"I was just trying to make you come with me," he stated simply.

"Come with you? What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled, but only for a moment. "Wait, let me guess: 'The king is calling me'?" at the same time that he said the same phrase with me. "Urgh!" I cried. This was so frustrating. "What does that even _mean_?"

"I guess you'll have to come with me and find out, won't you?" With that, he did a freakish dolphin-dive thing, in which he literally jumped up, over, and out of my little blood tornado. It was such a stupendous feat that I think I would have stopped and clapped for him, maybe even given a small speech or presented an award, had it not been _an urgent life or death situation_. C'mon people, you don't really think I'm _that_ absent-minded, do you?

Luke, the talent act of the night, spun around and, wielding his sword like the pro that he was, thrust the weapon forward into my left leg, towards the top near my thigh. Then, without even waiting for me to cry out in pain, he shifted to my other leg, and gave that a nice humongous gash too, one that ran the entire length of my leg. Point in case: thanks for the boo-boos, buddy.

With a silent cry, I fell to the ground very _un_ gracefully, landing on my side with a thud as my skull met the concrete with a sickening crack. I lay there, panting, my vision becoming blurry and faded. I watched through fog-lensed eyes as Luke casually came up to me, kneeling down beside me, one hand propped up on his jagged sword.

"You have two options," he told me casually, as if this was a normal conversation between two old friends. Obviously, that was not the case at all. "You can either come peacefully and not get injured at all, or you can put up another useless fight, after which I'll just drag your limp body anyway."

I stopped listening after that, tuning out the part where he talked about what all he could do to me and my family and my friends, because I noticed something out of the corner of my eye: a form behind Luke, slightly off in the distance, which was moving. Now, I'm fairly certain I had a concussion, and my vision was doing all sorts of weird things involving trees with rainbow leaves and two Lukes looking down at me, but I could have sworn that the lone moving figure was Cat.

Trying to squint in that direction without being too obvious that I wasn't paying attention, I looked closer and... Yep, that was definitely Cat. I breathed a sigh of relief as I observed her struggle to sit up straight, then, slowly, stand up. I couldn't believe it; I had thought for sure that she was dead.

But, evidently, she wasn't. She looked over to me and Luke, or so it seemed, and realization seemed to dawn on her. Miraculously, she began to walk over to us, taking small, clumsy steps like an infant. I figured that her body was probably protesting her moving while she was still enduring so much pain.

As I watched, I noticed something in her hand, something shiny, and long. And familiar.

I resisted the urge to call her name, to tell her to throw it to me, but that didn't seem necessary; I could see her lips form my name, although I couldn't hear it: "Percy."

Understanding seemed to pass between us like a shockwave, and I glanced back at Luke right as he seemed to be finishing up his villain's monologue:

"So what's it gonna be, Jackson?" His face was expectant, and irritatingly patient.

 _He expects me to give up_ , I thought, anger tainting my already-screwed vision red. _He thinks I'm too weak to fight anymore. Well, let's see what he thinks about this..._

"Okay," I said with a sigh, and I was satisfied to see a tiny bit of surprise register on Luke's face. A small part of him must have been expecting me to put up a fight. _He's not so wrong..._ "I'll go with you."

"Really?" He asked, a mixture of shock and suspicion vying for position on his face.

"Yep," I admitted with a hapless shrug. "I'm tired."

"Oh. Um. Right." He seemed momentarily speechless, and I took advantage of the situation.

"But first," I asked, trying to make my expression and body look as weak and submissive as possible, "can I grab something from the house?" I gestured at Annabeth's home behind me. "You know, sort of as a last-request thing?"

I looked quickly over Luke's shoulder at Cat, the speculated demigod no more than five feet away. Five feet. I could do five feet.

"Sure..." he said, doubt and suspicion in his tone. "What do you want?"

"Oh, I just need to grab my..." The pale girl and I made eye-contact, and with a subtle nod, I cried, "Cat!"

Luke's nose wrinkled in confusion. "Why do you need your cat?" Following my intense gaze, he glanced over his shoulder at Cat standing there, her strawberry-blonde hair stained with her own blood. She still looked beautiful, somehow. He seemed to understand everything, in a split-second, my whole plan.

But it was too late. In that split-second, Cat tossed the sword up and over Luke's head, the weapon dodging his head as it spun and twirled like an Olympic gymnast in the air. It landed in my hand with a thud and I gripped it tightly in my fingers, brandishing my trusty ol' sword Riptide in the air above me, right before I plunged the blade into Luke's stomach.

"Jacks-" he was cut off abruptly as the sword passed through his stomach and to the other side, effectively impaling him completely. I watched, equally detached and horrified, as he fell to the ground, a dark red stain already beginning to form around the hole. Judging by the rapid pace in which it was spreading, I figured I had five minutes, tops. Five minutes to figure out everything that he knew about this whole situation.

I began, leaning on the hilt of the sword to prevent him from leaving, though it certainly didn't seem like he was going anywhere any time soon. "Luke, how did you come back to life?"

He gasped for breath. "I don't know."

I twisted the sword, hating myself more than you will ever know, but knowing that it was necessary in order to stay alive. To keep everyone alive.

"Fine!" He admitted, "Some god. I don't know who. But some god plucked me from the Underworld and brought me back. That's all I know."

Satisfied with his answer, I glanced at the slightly inhuman glow about him, like his skin cells were all made up of moon beams. "You're not human, are you? So what are you?"

I watched as he kicked off his shows with a considerable amount of strength, revealing two bare feet. Or, not quite feet, so much as appendages: one of his feet - or what should have been his foot - was a hoof, like that of a horse's or a donkey's, and the other looked like a golden shoe, hard and hollow.

I breathed out through my nose. "You're an empousa." He nodded, his eyes fluttering closed. "A male empousa? How is that even possible?"

He shrugged, as if he had bigger problems to deal with, which, I guess he did, considering he had a massive sword in his stomach.

"Luke, at my birthday party, who sent that hellhound after me?"

"Not...sure."

I didn't press him this time, figuring he had no reason to lie at this point. "Okay...um, do you know if I can ever go back to being fully alive?"

Luke didn't answer; the son of Hermes was no panting frantically. Sweat beaded his forehead. Blood gushed from his nose and the wound in his stomach, and when he coughed, dark red droplets appeared from there as well. It was obvious that he was dying, and I could do nothing about it.

"One last thing! Just one last thing. Who is this king that you were talking about? A god?" He nodded, a miniscule lift of his chin. "Then who? Who?"

Somehow, he managed to choke out one word: "Hades."

I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding. Now I knew. For the first time since Alicia, or Bianca, or whatever, had uttered the familiar phrase to me, I understood. I knew. Hades was the king. I had to go see Hades.

I was snapped out of my thoughts at the sound of violent coughing; Luke's. I could see him struggling to hold onto life by now. In fact, it looked like every part of him was struggling. The sandy-blonde color of his hair had changed to a dull, lackluster gray, and his bones seemed more pronounced by the second. Even the subtle glow about him had faded to a pale skin tone.

"Come on, Luke, let's get you to a hospital." I knew that a really good hospital could fix him, could stop him from dying. Or maybe it would be better to go to Camp, where there was ambrosia and nectar...

"Don't," he told me, and I stared at him in surprise. He begged, "Don't...take me."

I couldn't understand it: why didn't he want to live? Why didn't he want to be saved?

"Percy," he sputtered, more blood appearing on his chin, and I was surprised to hear him use my first name. It was the first time he'd called me that since when he had first died, back in the throne room on Olympus. "It's me. Luke."

And I understood what he meant: the Luke before hadn't been him. Sure, the guy I'd just battled had the same characteristics of Luke in his first life, but that was the version of him that was a traitor, that was an enemy to us at Camp Half-Blood. This Luke that I was talking to now, the skinny kid with the sunken face and pale skin, was the one that had courageously taken his own life to save us all.

He seemed to understand that _I_ understood, saying, through a series of ragged breathing, "I want...to die...like that. Myself. A... A hero... A hero." Although there wasn't anything interrogative about his statement, it had an underlying tone to it, like he was asking me. He was asking me to remember him as a hero, to tell others that he had died a hero too, like before. Right now, he was asking me to let him die as his old self, and to not be saved, only to live again as some mutant empousa, the handiwork of some ungrateful god. No, Luke was a hero, and he deserved to die honorably.

"Do you still..." He let out another set of violent coughs, the blood now coming up black instead of red. "...love her?"

He didn't even have to say Annabeth's name for me to know who he meant. "Yes. Always," I stated simply. Then, curiously: "Do you?"

He breathed out slowly. "Yes. Always." Several long, strenuous moments induced by silence passed before he said anything else. "Percy..."

"Yes?"

"Take... care of...her."

I was instantly reminded of Beckendorf's last words - or second round of last words - to me, in which he'd made me promise to take care of Annabeth. I blinked back tears, surprised to feel them hovering in my eyes, and said in a voice both choked and forced, "I will."

And then, as suddenly as if someone had turned out the lights in a house, he was gone.

Luke Castellan was dead.

 **WOW. So much stuff happened! Luke is dead, and Hades is the king, and where the fudge is Sally during all of this... But I mean, you guys saw that coming, right? Well, maybe not the Sally part, cuz who even knows where she is, but the rest... You guys are smart. Let me know if you saw that coming with a review (please). Honestly, I would love it if we could reach 120 reviews by the next time I update; that's only 11 more reviews in a matter of months! You guys are awesome, so I know you can do it. Seriously, that would mean the world to me. Plus, it will encourage me to continue sooner. :)**

 **Thank you all for reading, and I honestly hope that you enjoyed these past 2 chapters. Also, thanks for being patient enough to wait for me for a few months while I get things sorted out and use the time to make this story better. I love and appreciate you all so, so much. :) THANK YOU x 10,000,000,000...**

 **Until next time.**

 **Love,**

 **~Princess Andromeda II**


	17. I Start Turning InvisibleAgain

**Holy crap: a whole year. Time flies when you're having fun...and not updating. Honestly, I could go on for days about how sorry I am for leaving this story alone for so long, but none of us have time for that. ;) so I'll just say it once, and we'll just move on with our lives, ok? Here we go:** **I'M SO SO SORRY!** **I even added an extra "so" in there; now please don't hate me. :( That being said, I apologize ahead of time for any mistakes in this chapter or things that might conflict with things said in other chapters, but I tried my best. I'll shut up now, and I really really hope you enjoy reading...Here's Chapter 17! (FINALLY!)**

I sat there limply, staring at the dead body before me.

I couldn't believe that Luke Castellan, the boy who had killed himself so many years ago, had just died for the second time before my eyes. For about the millionth time that day, I thought about what a bad luck charm I must be, to have so many of my friends die when they were near me. Even thinking about it set my blood boiling.

 _What is wrong with me?_

I punched the ground in frustration, not able to feel the pain through the anger surging inside of me. The only thing that managed to call me was the sound of soft footsteps coming up behind me.

"Percy," I heard a tiny voice whisper, and I turned to see Annabeth standing there, looking uncharacteristically fragile, her arms crossed defensively in front of her. "I think we should go."

"But Annabeth," I protested, shocked. I thought she would've wanted to stay behind, to mourn for Luke, who was just another addition to the long list of deaths I had caused. "Luke just died. Are you sure you don't want to stay a little longer?"

She let out a long sigh that caused the blonde wisps of hair dangling in front of her face to fly up gently. "Staying wouldn't help anything," she answered. "He's dead, and that's that. The only thing that we can do now is to try to help you. So let's go."

I stood up slowly, still somewhat surprised by her ability to move on so quickly, but then I realized that she was right. Luke _was_ dead staying here and crying over him wouldn't help that at all. So the only thing I could do was to see if I could fix this mess, and as of right now, the only good way to do that was to do what all these weirdos had been telling me to do.

"You're right," I told her, and she seemed startled by my response, but she nodded all the same.

"Okay. What's the plan?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you have a plan don't you?" she shrugged, looking at me like it was obvious. When I stared at her blankly, she smacked her forehead in frustration and glared at me. "You don't have a plan, do you?"

"What are you talking about? I never have a plan! You're always the one that comes up with the plans!"

" _What_?!" she cried. "You can't just rely on me to come up with all of the plans!"

"Why not?" I laughed nervously, only half-joking, and she swung her arm at me, presumably to hit me. But something weird happened when she did that: instead of her hand slapping against my arm like it should've, it passed right through as if it was made purely of air.

We both stared at my arm in shock: it looked solid enough. I reached forward to give it a light squeeze: it felt solid enough. But when Annabeth tried to touch it, once again it appeared to be nonexistent.

" _Di immortales_ ," she muttered breathily.

"That's weird," I said. "Earlier... earlier, you could touch me, right?"

She nodded, frowning. "This is a bad sign. Either something happened earlier to make you appear human for a little while, or now any leftover characteristics of being alive are fading."

"Are you saying I could be completely gone soon?"

Her hair whipped around her face as she shook her head slowly. "I'm not sure. Honestly, I have no idea what's happening, or what you are, or why you're like this, or -"

Annabeth suddenly stopped speaking, and covered her face with her hands. I was beyond-shocked when I heard muffled sobs coming from her, and could only stare at her as she cried.

I know. I'm the best boyfriend ever.

"Annabeth," I said after an awkward minute of her crying and me just staring, "it's okay. I'm okay. Look, we'll be fine. I promise."

She stopped crying long enough to peek out from behind her hands and glare at me, although it was a little hard to take her angry stare seriously with tears running down her face and her face so puffy and swollen.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Percy," she told me sadly, and I thought about all the times throughout her life she must've been lied to and disappointed by people she loved: too many times. But I also thought about the fact that I _wasn't_ one of those people; even now, when I was practically dead, I was here with _her_ , and not off doing some weird ghost-stuff.

"That's why I'm saying it, Annabeth," I told her gently, kneeling next to her with my hand resting on her back. "We _will_ be okay. That's a promise I know I can keep. Okay?"

When she didn't answer me, I reached forward and touched her cheek gently, tilting her chin up ever so slightly.

"Hey," I said, a small grin on my face. "We've gotten out of situations worse than this, right?"

She allowed herself to smile, and nodded. I pulled her up and wrapped her into a hug. The two of us stood there for what felt like forever, and I felt better when she finally extracted herself and brushed away the remaining tears on her face.

"Okay then. So here's the plan, " she said, fierce determination lighting her face. I smiled: _There's the Wise Girl I know and love_.

"We go find this 'king' or whoever it is that everyone's been talking about, and we go find him and beat his sorry a-"

I cut her off from cursing, saying, "First of all, don't curse. It's not lady-like," I chided teasingly, and she stuck out her tongue at me. "Second of all, I know who the king is."

Her eyes widened into the size of two saucers as I spoke. " _You do?!_ "

I nodded solemnly. "Luke told me. It's Hades."

" _Well why didn't you say that sooner?!_ " she cried, and I winced at how loud her voice was.

"You didn't ask!" I defended, but she wasn't listening to me, she was too busy being caught up in her own thought. I could practically see the gears spinning into that Athenian brain of hers, whirring at a million miles a minute as she let the new information sink in.

"So if Hades is the king, then we should go see him. But where would we even find him?"

"Olympus maybe?" I offered with a simple shrug, but Annabeth waved the idea off.  
"No, he wouldn't be there," she muttered, more to herself than to me. "The gods are done with their meeting, and he probably wouldn't want to stick around that long for the banquets anyway. So maybe...the Underworld! Let's go there!"

"Ugh," I groaned. "Do we really have to? I hate it down there!" I had some not too-fond memories of betray down there that I didn't exactly care to revisit any time soon.

"Yes," she said with another characteristic Annabeth-glare. "Unless of course, you want to be stuck as a half-dead weirdo for the rest of your life, or as long as you're like this. It's your choice completely."

"Alright, Wise Girl," I said with an exaggerated eye-roll. "Let's go. It's been awhile since I've chatted with Good Ole Death Breath anyway."

We had barely walked two steps before we heard a voice permeate the still air, making us both freeze instantly: "You're not going anywhere without me," said the voice, the sass and self-entitlement all-too clear.

I turned slowly, only to see Cat standing there, her red hair only a few shades lighter than the red blood that dripped from her forehead onto her face.

I couldn't think of anything to say - not even a simple "thank you" to her for saving my life - so instead all I could do was sort of mumble, "You're not dead."

Her hearing must've been better than I thought, because she rolled her eyes, a deadpan expression on her face. "No duh. Of course I'm alive! You didn't think I'd let some blonde boy kill me that quickly, did you?"

Once again, I didn't respond to what she said, so Annabeth began to walk towards the other girl. When she reached her, regarded the taller girl curiously, nodding slightly. "Hi. You must be Cat."

"And you must be Annabeth," said Cat, an odd tone in her voice that I couldn't quite pin down.

"I just wanted to say thank you for saving Percy's life," went on Annabeth, apparently either not noticing or not caring about the strange tone. "He may seem smart, but he's actually just a big Seaweed Brain. Most of the time I'm the one that has to help him, so I appreciate someone else doing it for once," said Annabeth with a laugh, sticking out her hand for Cat to shake.

The other girl merely stared at Annabeth's hand for a moment, until it got awkward and Annabeth just lowered her hand slowly.

"So, uh, Cat," I finally intervened, noticing the lingering pause in the air. "We should probably get going now. Thanks for all your help, but - "

"No," she interrupted, finally speaking again. "I'm coming with you, and that's that."

"What?" I asked incredulously. "No you're not!"

"Yes. I am," she replied, crossing her arms defiantly.

"Annabeth, she can't come right?" I said, turning to my girlfriend, who I naturally expected to back me up on an important matter like this. Mistake number one.

"Oh, I don't know..." Annabeth said, an odd smirk on her face as she looked at Cat. "I don't see why she can't come."

Cat glanced up, no doubt as surprised as I was to hear Annabeth say such a thing.

My mouth dropped open, and I let it stay there. " _What? Why?!_ "

She shrugged, her eyes squinted slightly as she maintained her stare. "She could be useful. Besides, quests always have three people anyway."

"This is _not_ a quest," I scowled, upset for some reason.

"If this isn't a quest, then I'm not the best girlfriend in the entire world," retorted Annabeth, and I opened my mouth to protest, but clamped it shut as soon as I saw her warning expression.

"Fine," I muttered, letting out a loud sigh. "Alright then," I finally said, turning to Cat. "Would you like to come with us?"

She shrugged. "I would've come even if you hadn't asked me. But sure, whatever."

Annabeth nodded curtly, clasping her hands together. "I've got a few things we should grab from the house first, but then we can go."

We began walking towards the door, and I raised an eyebrow in question as I fell into step beside my girlfriend, asking, "What kind of things?"

She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, an evil smirk lighting her face. "You'll just have to wait and see."

 **Welp. There you go. Chapter 17's finally done, a whole year later. (I'm laughing so hard right now, I can't believe I didn't update for a whole year...). Anyway, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING. I honestly don't know how many people are still interested in this story, but I** **WILL** **finish this story, no matter what, and no more long-a$$ hiatuses, I promise. Please follow, favorite, and review, but most of all, remember to smile. :)**

 **Love you all, and again I'm so so sorry...**

 **~ Princess Andromeda II**

 **P.S. I will see you** **NEXT WEEK** **for Chapter 18!**


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